Really hope this ends very soon… but honestly, it feels like the world’s gone mad.
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I have a friend from India, and just a couple of days before the missile strikes from Pakistan, I asked him if things could actually escalate. He reassured me, saying it’s usually just minor tensions that come and go. But now, after everything that’s happened, even he’s not so sure this will end quickly.
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Has the United States experienced an increase in corruption at its highest levels?
Trump gifted luxury plane ahead of Middle East trip to use as Air Force One.
President Trump poised to accept $400 million jet from Qatar in unprecedented move
The plane would be donated to the Trump Presidential Library Foundation, which would allow President Trump to continue using it after leaving office.
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Great one=)
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Trump’s sons pushing family business deals in Qatar amid country’s rumored gift of $400m Air Force One replacement
The furor over Qatar possibly giving the U.S. a $400 million Boeing jet for Donald Trump to use as a replacement for Air Force One has highlighted administration figures’ thicket of concerning business connections to the country, as Trump prepares to visit the U.S. ally during a Middle East tour this week.
Last month, the Trump Organization, run by Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Jr, announced a deal with developers Dar Global and Qatari Diar to build a Trump International Golf Club featuring 18 holes and a series of Trump-branded luxury villas within a larger government development.
Elsewhere, state-backed funds from Qatar were part of a $6 billion funding round for Trump adviser Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI, and a fund from Qatar is also invested in the private equity firm of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, meanwhile, once earned up to $115,000 per month lobbying for Qatar.
Amid mounting scrutiny of other Middle East-linked Trump deals, such as a United Arab Emirates state and royal family fund using $2 billion of crypto from Trump’s World Liberty Financial to invest in a crypto exchange.
MAGA activist Laura Loomer called the transfer a “stain” on the administration, while conservative commentator Ben Shapiro said such a deal did not fit with Trump’s promises to “drain the swamp” of Washington corruption.
The purported Air Force One replacement deal, which Qatar has insisted is still only under consideration, has attracted storms of criticism from Democrats as well as some conservatives. Many have pointed out Qatar’s funding of Hamas – estimated at some $1.8 billion since 2007 – while Trump attacks university protesters supporting Gaza.
MAGA activist Laura Loomer called the transfer a “stain” on the administration, while conservative commentator Ben Shapiro said such a deal did not fit with Trump’s promises to “drain the swamp” of Washington corruption.
A rising concern is Qatar’s influence on Trump and conflicts of interest as his sons negotiate deals with Qatar that will directly enrich the Trump family fortunes.
To guard against influence and bribery the Constitution’s emoluments clause prohibits any government official from accepting gifts from “any King, Prince or foreign State.
Richard Briffault, a Columbia Law School professor who specializes in government ethics, told NPR that the plane “is not really a gift to the United States at all” if it’s going to end up at Trump’s presidential library.
Trump’s acceptance of the plane would constitute a personal gift and it would be a "pretty textbook case of a violation of the Emoluments Clause,” said Briffaut.
He also noted that the point of a gift like the plane is to make the U.S. president feel beholden.
Gifts are “designed to create good feelings for the recipient and to get some kind of reciprocity," Briffault said. “The thing that [Trump] can give [to Qatar], of course, is public policy — weapons deals or whatever. And then, of course, it’s an incentive to other countries to give similar gifts as another way of influencing presidential decision-making."
In addition, Trump’s company and sons are already trying to increase their fortunes in the region. “Is America’s best interest being served, or is it the best interests of the Trump Organization?” Jordan Libowitz of the nonprofit watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington asked NPR.
Trump, for his part, has defended the reported aircraft gift that has been described as a “flying palace“ for its opulence.
corruption?
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Bondi Sold $1M+ of Trump Media Stock on His ‘Liberation Day’
Attorney General Pam Bondi sold at least $1 million worth of shares in President Trump’s social media company on the day he announced his sweeping tariffs.
Bondi, who was tapped by Trump to lead the Department of Justice, sold between $1 million and $5 million of shares in Trump Media and Technology Group—the company that owns Truth Social—on April 2, according to documents obtained by ProPublica and CBS News.
The same day, Trump confirmed his long-touted tariff plans on global imports. Trump, who dubbed the occasion “Liberation Day,” unveiled a 10 percent baseline tariff for dozens of countries and additional, higher tariffs targeting specific nations, including China.
The president’s unprecedented import levies resulted in the markets plummeting, with TMTG also affected.
On April 1, a day before “Liberation Day,” TMTG was trading at more than $20 per share. This dropped to $18.76 on April 2 before falling even further to $16.66 by April 8. The price has since rebounded.
Bondi’s disclosure form detailing her share sales does not specify whether she sold her TMTG stock before or after the markets closed on April 2, according to ProPublica.
Attorney General Pam Bondi sold at least $1 million worth of shares in President Trump’s social media company on the day he announced his sweeping tariffs.
Bondi, who was tapped by Trump to lead the Department of Justice, sold between $1 million and $5 million of shares in Trump Media and Technology Group—the company that owns Truth Social—on April 2, according to documents obtained by ProPublica and CBS News.
The same day, Trump confirmed his long-touted tariff plans on global imports. Trump, who dubbed the occasion “Liberation Day,” unveiled a 10 percent baseline tariff for dozens of countries and additional, higher tariffs targeting specific nations, including China.
The president’s unprecedented import levies resulted in the markets plummeting, with TMTG also affected.
On April 1, a day before “Liberation Day,” TMTG was trading at more than $20 per share. This dropped to $18.76 on April 2 before falling even further to $16.66 by April 8. The price has since rebounded.
Bondi’s disclosure form detailing her share sales does not specify whether she sold her TMTG stock before or after the markets closed on April 2, according to ProPublica.
Trump posted on Truth Social, “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT,” just hours before announcing a 90-day pause on nearly all the tariffs he had previously proposed.
The president’s initials, DJT, are also used as the trading ticker for TMTG.
The stock price of TMTG climbed nearly a quarter from $16.66 on April 8 to $20.27 by the seeminglyclose of trading on April 9 in the wake of Trump’s announcement temporarily halting his global tariff plans.
“Trump is creating giant market fluctuations with his on-again, off-again tariffs. These constant gyrations in policy provide dangerous opportunities for insider trading,” California Senator Adam Schiff posted on X.
“Who in the administration knew about Trump’s latest tariff flip-flop ahead
Trump says Comey called for ‘assassination of the president’ with ’8647′ Instagram post
- President Donald Trump said former FBI Director James Comey was “calling for the assassination of the president” in a since-deleted Instagram post.
Comey’s post featured the numbers “8647,” which some people in the Trump administration said was a violent reference to Trump, the 47th U.S. president.
“He knew exactly what that meant,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News. “That meant ‘assassination.’”
The Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service are investigating Comey’s post.
Trump shares video of supporter saying “the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat”
President Trump on Thursday retweeted a video of a supporter saying that the “only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.” The man in the video is a New Mexico politician who faced calls to resign after making the remark earlier this month.
Mr. Trump at midnight retweeted a video from Cowboys For Trump featuring the group’s founder, Couy Griffin, who is also the Otero County commissioner. The clip shows Griffin speaking to a crowd of supporters.
“I’ve come to a place where I’ve come to the conclusion that the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat,” Griffin says in the first seconds of the clip, drawing cheers and applause.
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Yeah, and that’s just 100 days into the presidency
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The foundation of the Afrikaners was rotten from the beginning; they were not nice people.
Is there a genocide of white South Africans as Trump claims?
Who are the Afrikaners?
South African History Online sums up their identity by pointing out that “the modern Afrikaner is descended mainly from Western Europeans who settled on the southern tip of Africa during the middle of the 17th Century”.
A mixture of Dutch (34.8%), German (33.7%) and French (13.2%) settlers, they formed a “unique cultural group” which identified itself “completely with African soil”, South African History Online noted.
Their language, Afrikaans, is quite similar to Dutch.
But as they planted their roots in Africa, Afrikaners, as well as other white communities, forced black people to leave their land.
Afrikaners are also known as Boers, which actually means farmer, and the group is still closely associated with farming.
In 1948, South Africa’s Afrikaner-led government introduced apartheid, or apartness, taking racial segregation to a more extreme level.
This included laws which banned marriages across racial lines, reserved many skilled and semi-skilled jobs for white people, and forced black people to live in what were called townships and homelands.
They were also denied a decent education, with Afrikaner leader Hendrik Verwoerd infamously remarking in the 1950s that “blacks should never be shown the greener pastures of education. They should know their station in life is to be hewers of wood and drawers of water”.
Afrikaner dominance of South Africa ended in 1994, when black people were allowed to vote for the first time in a nationwide election, bringing Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) to power.
Afrikaners currently number more than 2.5 million out of a population of more than 60 million - about 4%.
Is a genocide being committed?
None of South Africa’s political parties - including those that represent Afrikaners and the white community in general - have claimed that there is a genocide in South Africa.
But such claims have been circulating among right-wing groups for many years and Trump also referred to a genocide during his first term.
The claims stem from attacks on white farmers, or misleading information circulated online.
In February, a South African judge dismissed the idea of a genocide as “clearly imagined” and “not real”, when ruling in an inheritance case involving a wealthy benefactor’s donation to white supremacist group Boerelegioen.
South Africa does not release crime figures based on race but the latest figures revealed that 6,953 people were murdered in the country between October and December 2024.
Of these, 12 were killed in farm attacks. Of the 12, one was a farmer, while five were farm dwellers and four were employees, who are likely to have been black.
What have Trump and Musk said?
Defending his decision to give Afrikaners refugee status, Trump said that a “genocide” was taking place in South Africa, white farmers were being “brutally killed” and their “land is being confiscated”.
Trump said that he was not sure how he could attend the G20 summit of world leaders, due to be held in South Africa later this year, in such an environment.
“I don’t know how we can go unless that situation’s taken care of,” he added.
South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has said it was “completely false” to claim that “people of a certain race or culture are being targeted for persecution”.
Referring to the first group who have moved to the US, he said: “They are leaving because they don’t want to embrace the changes that are taking place in our country and our constitution.”
The government denies that land is being confiscated from farmers, saying that a bill Ramaphosa signed into law in January was aimed at addressing the land dispossession that black people faced during white-minority rule.
Trump’s close adviser Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa, has referred to the country’s “racist ownership laws”, alleging that his satellite internet service provider Starlink was “not allowed to operate in South Africa simply because I’m not black”.
To operate in South Africa, Starlink needs to obtain network and service licences, which both require 30% ownership by historically disadvantaged groups.
This mainly refers to South Africa’s majority black population, which was shut out of the economy during the racist system of apartheid.
Trump says he killed DEI. So why isn’t it dead yet? Cracks emerge in war on ‘woke’
The Trump administration struck mighty blows in the first 100 days, reshaping DEI policies across industries and touching virtually every American workplace.
Even before Trump’s inauguration, Facebook owner Meta abandoned its practice of considering diverse candidates for open roles. McDonald’s dropped diversity targets for its executive ranks.
In Trump’s first week back in the White House, defense contractor Lockheed Martin said it would take “immediate action to ensure continued compliance and full alignment with President Trump’s recent executive order.”
Software giant Salesforce.com, which told USA TODAY in 2023 that it would stand up to Trump on DEI, deleted the word “diversity” from its annual report and scrapped goals to diversify its workforce.
DEI explained What is DEI and why is it so divisive? What you need to know.
Instead of backing off, corporations are evolving their diversity programs to focus on what works and jettison what does not, said Joelle Emerson, CEO of culture and inclusion platform Paradigm.
Some 85% of companies report that their executive teams are just as committed – or even more – to building fair and inclusive workplaces as they were a year ago, according to a recent Paradigm survey.
“We’re seeing organizations back away from highly scrutinized and increasingly legally risky efforts like setting and sharing representation goals as well as evolving their language, moving away from the politically charged acronym ‘DEI,’” Emerson said. “But most appear to be continuing or even doubling down on initiatives that have the greatest impact. Benefits that allow a broader range of people to thrive in the workforce. Processes that empower companies to cast wider nets and hire and advance the best talent. Training and other programs that focus on creating cultures for everyone where all employees can do their best work.”
Is DEI doubling down?
Over half of the nation’s 3,000 largest companies continue to build and expand DEI-related programs, according to Olivia Knight, racial and environmental justice manager at shareholder advocacy group As You Sow, which has advocated for corporate DEI programs.
With good reason, said Meredith Benton, workplace equity manager at As You Sow and founder of Whistle Stop Capital. In the coming years, minority groups will become a majority of the U.S. population and they will expect businesses to reflect the nation’s diversity.
“Early on, there was sincere confusion about the relevancy of these topics to financial returns,” Benton said. “We are no longer having that conversation. The conversation now is about the best way to ensure that workplaces are managing against bias and discrimination.”
While corporations try to “fly below the radar” – in the words of a large retailer just this week, Benton said – she continues to have conversations with corporate executives that show “their deep understanding of how workforce cohesion, employee belonging, and employee loyalty is essential to their business success.”
Some corporations are not sitting on the sidelines.
At the Great Place to Work For All Summit, a leadership event in Las Vegas, CEO Anthony Capuano recalled the debate over whether Marriott should make changes to its DEI policies.
Thinking back to conversations with his mentor and former chairman Bill Marriott, he told employees: “The winds blow, but there are some fundamental truths for those 98 years. We welcome all to our hotels, and we create opportunities for all, and fundamentally, those will never change.”
Twenty-four hours later, Capuano said he had 40,000 emails thanking him.
At Starbucks’ annual meeting, CEO Brian Niccol talked up DEI, telling shareholders it is critical for the coffee giant to reflect the diversity of its customers and staff “in every single one of our stores.”
“Starbucks is a tremendously, tremendously diverse organization and will continue to be a tremendously diverse organization,” Niccol said.
“It’s still early days, and I’m sure this administration will have more items in their bag of tricks, but I do think it’s notable that a lot of work is continuing despite the unprecedented assault (DEI) has faced,” said David Glasgow, executive director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at the NYU School of Law.
“Short-sighted” organizations that abandon DEI won’t do so for long, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian predicts.
Successful companies are not checking a box but building policies that support “a wide range of people,” the entrepreneur and investor told Forbes.
“I think that the biggest sham is that we have somehow identified these types of goals with not being meritocratic,” Ohanian said. “Those of us who’ve been out here building multibillion-dollar companies with an eye towards having diversity, equity, and inclusion, we’re hiring for greatness. That never stopped.”
Paul Argenti, a professor of corporate communication at Dartmouth, said the business case for diversity has never been stronger.
“The choice isn’t between merit and diversity. The highest-performing organizations know that having a meritocracy means you need to make sure that diverse candidates have the same chance to show their merit as others,” Argenti wrote in a LinkedIn post. “Companies with diverse leadership consistently outperform their homogeneous counterparts in innovation, risk management and financial returns.”
Trump shared that tweet in 2020, he was in favor of political violence, and now he is upset about Comey’s post.