There are tantalizing signs that the worst of the disastrous credit crunch may be over. The most tangible evidence can be found in the latest earnings reports from some of the U.S.’s largest banks.
With a few exceptions, financial institutions such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. reported increases in lending to big businesses and, to a lesser extent, to consumers. Since consumers power growth, making up about two-thirds of the U.S. economy, their ability to get credit may determine whether the fragile recovery endures.
There are several things regulators and banks can do to ensure that the lending revival doesn’t fizzle. Although many bankers might disagree, regulators should continue to press banks to increase their capital. As we have argued before, more capital gives lenders a greater cushion to absorb losses, thus lowering risk to the financial system and the economy.
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene
I’m absolutely double-positive it won’t surprise you to learn that America’s favorite poster-person for bluster, blowhardiness and bong-bouncy-bunk went on Fox News on Sunday and made a threat. Amazingly, she didn’t threaten to expose alleged corruption by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by quoting a Russian think-tank bot-factory known as Strategic Culture Foundation, as she did last November. Rather, the Congressperson from North Georgia made her eleventy-zillionth threat to oust the Speaker of the House from her own party, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), using the Motion to Vacate she filed last month. She told Fox viewers she wanted to return to her House district to “listen to voters” before acting, however.
MTM is upset with Speaker Johnson because he engineered the passage of a $91 billion supplemental aid package that included $61 billion in aid to Ukraine by teaming up with Democrats to get it passed, thus violating the Republican Party’s Thirteenth Commandment, don’t do anything Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin don’t tell you to do. The Mouth from the South has been all talk and no action when it comes to the Motion to Vacate she filed in late March.
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), the Congressman from the Bamboo Fiber Ballot state, joined Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie in sponsoring The Mouth’s motion to rid the Republican conference of its Speaker. Some Republican allies of Speaker Johnson have offered to put forth a change in the rule that allows a single member to force a vote to vacate the speakership, but Johnson has brushed off the offer, seeming to challenge the Mouth to go ahead with her threat. She hasn’t taken him up on it, however.
With three Republican sponsors, the Motion to Vacate the Speakership will pass if every Democrat votes to join them, giving Republicans the rare opportunity to throw the House of Representatives into chaos for the third time in two years.
House Democratic leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is unlikely to allow that to happen, however, and is reportedly rubbing his hands together with glee as he calculates what price he will exact from puppet Speaker Johnson in the coming weeks and months. With the word “bipartisan” having returned to the Washington D.C. lexicon thanks to Marjorie Taylor Mouth, anything could happen.
Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. You can subscribe to his daily columns at luciantruscott.substack.com and follow him on Twitter @LucianKTruscott and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV.
Please consider subscribing to Lucian Truscott Newsletter, from which this is reprinted with permission.
Trump campaign press pass brandished on air by QAnon podcaster Brenden Dilley
Vanity Fair recently reported that several journalists from mainstream publications, including The Washington Post, NBC News, Axios, and Vanity Fair, were denied press access to Trump’s campaign events, seemingly in retaliation for their previous critical coverage. Meanwhile, Media Matters found that the campaign has granted press credentials to the QAnon-promoting MG Show and Brenden Dilley, a podcaster who has promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory and leads a “meme team” that creates pro-Trump content.
Washington Post reporter Isaac Arnsdorf has allegedly been barred from Trump’s campaign events since February, according to Vanity Fair, over his rejection of a campaign request to change the title of his book Finish What We Started: The MAGA Movement’s Ground War to End Democracy. Several other reporters also allegedly had press access revoked over critical coverage or public spats with campaign officials. Vanity Fair reported:
In recent weeks, the [Trump] campaign has taken similar punitive measures against other reporters, according to multiple sources familiar with the moves. An Axios reporter had their credentials approved for an event and then revoked the same day, following the publication of a story about the Trump-led Republican National Committee’s struggles in swing states. (An Axios spokesperson declined to comment.) At least one other Post reporter was temporarily denied press credentials to multiple events after accurately reporting on Trump’s public statements. Most recently, Brian Stelter, a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, was denied press access to Trump’s rally in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania.
While it has barred mainstream journalists, the campaign has granted press credentials to a QAnon-promoting show and a podcaster who creates pro-Trump content.
At least one host of the QAnon-promoting podcast MG Show was seemingly given a press pass for Trump’s December 17 campaign rally in Reno, Nevada. Days before the rally, co-host Shannon Townsend announced on the podcast that after seeking press passes for the rally, the show was granted the status of “accredited media with Donald Trump and the rally campaign.” Afterward, Townsend posted images from the rally, including one that appears to show him holding a press pass in a media area.
In response to reporter Brian Stelter posting on April 19, “I applied for press credentials for Trump's most recent rally in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania and was rejected,” Townsend shared an image of his credentials for the Nevada rally, and said, “I have mine.”
MG Show had previously received press credentials for a 2021 Trump rally in Sarasota, Florida, at which host Townsend wore a wristband with the QAnon slogan “where we go one, we go all” — or “WWG1WGA” for short — and led a crowd in chanting the slogan. The Trump campaign was forced to publicly distance itself from QAnon and MG Show after receiving backlash for credentialing the conspiracy theorists.
In January, Brenden Dilley, a podcaster who has previously promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory, bragged that he was given press credentials for the Trump campaign's Iowa caucus event.
Dilley has been the leader of a pro-Trump online “meme team” which calls itself “Trump’s Online War Machine,” and he has admitted that he “make[s] shit up” to further Trump’s agenda and hurt his political opponents. During an episode of his show, Dilley displayed the press pass, bragging that he got a “special” and “exclusive” press credential that got him into the “Trump War Room,” where he said “pretty much the entire Team Trump comes through.”
Barring mainstream journalists from campaign rallies and other events is hardly new for the Trump team. During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump and his allies waged an all-out war on the press, including banning certain journalists from events, and attacking critical coverage and entire mainstream news outlets as “fake news.”
Trump's presidential term was also marked by repeated instances where mainstream journalists were barred from official events and press conferences over unflattering coverage and unwanted questions. And his reelection campaign also reportedly issued a blanket credential denial against Bloomberg News over the outlet’s perceived “bias” against him.
Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.
