A WORLD GONE MAD
A Progressive Liberal News Podcast
Veteran Television, and Radio Broadcaster Jeff Alan Wolf offers his Observations on the issues (many issues) of the week with a fearless liberal bent. His solid delivery, and dry common sense approach sets him apart from other liberals that populate Talk and Commentary Podcasts”
Jeff Does NOT Pull Punches.
He does NOT Make comments that are “SAFE”.
He tells the Truth.
(He Tells It As He Sees It)
He Is Very OPINIONATED!
He says the things Out Loud YOU’RE
already thinking.
Jeff is Unfiltered, Unspun, A little Unhinged, but offers a lot of Common Sense.
This Podcast could make you MAD.
This Podcast could make you SMILE.
Regardless, it WILL make you THINK!
A WORLD GONE MAD
Rubio Warns US To Abandon Ukraine Peace Efforts, Can Trump Fire Jerome Powell?, What Do You Get An 81 Year Old Waitress?
Trump's Ukraine peace efforts are on the brink of collapse as Secretary of State Rubio warns of abandoning negotiations "within days" if progress isn't made. Russian intransigence appears to be the primary obstacle despite Ukraine's willingness to agree to proposed ceasefires.
• Trump administration struggling to fulfill campaign promise to quickly end Ukraine-Russia conflict
• Russia repeatedly stalling negotiations while Ukraine agreed to proposed ceasefire
• Potential option to increase military support to Ukraine to pressure Russia
• Capital One receives approval to merge with Discover, creating a new credit card giant
• Trump attempting to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell through Supreme Court challenge
• Supreme Court case could give presidents unprecedented power over independent agencies
• Heartwarming story of 81-year-old waitress Betty, and what totally changed her life!
If you have any comments on today's episode, please take a minute to send me a text, email, or voice message. I'm not asking for a lot - I do like hearing from you, the listeners.
Stay Hopefull
AWorldGoneMadPodcast@gmail.com
This is a world gone mad. This is a world gone mad, mad, mad, mad, mad. This is a world gone mad. Hello, I'm Jeff Allen Wolfe and I give my commentary on national and world news and politics. Welcome to the resistance.
Speaker 1:Here we go More incompetence, if that could happen anymore with Donald Trump. More incompetence about the Russia and Ukraine war. The US will abandon Ukraine peace efforts within days if no progress is made. Rubio warns the United States could end its efforts on ending the Ukrainian conflict within days if there are no signs of progress. Us Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Friday If it is not possible to end the war in Ukraine, we need to move on. He told reporters before departing Paris where he had held high-level talks with European and Ukrainian officials. We need to determine very quickly now and I'm talking about a matter of days whether or not this is doable, rubio said.
Speaker 1:Now Rubio's comments point to mounting frustration within the Trump administration at the lack of progress at bringing the three-year full-scale war to a halt. Reason is they don't know what they're doing. Scale war to a halt. Reason is they don't know what they're doing. Asked to clarify what Rubio meant that the US would move on a US official told CNN the Secretary of State was talking about the US moving on from negotiations and that the next few days will be important to figure out where things go from here. Very vague. A source familiar with negotiations for a Ukraine peace deal told CNN's Pamela Brown that Rubio was communicating the president's views characterizing the administration's thinking on where things stand in the conflict. The source said Trump doesn't have limitless patience for people to posture and play games. You're talking about Russia and Putin, donald, not Zelensky. A broad framework has been presented to both sides. Rubio and the State Department have said to determine whether the differences can be narrowed in this short time frame. Now, rubio said it would be taken by the Ukrainians back to Zelensky to discuss, and it was raised between Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on a call on Thursday.
Speaker 1:If there's no movement, the US officials said the administration will have to make significant policy decisions. Trump has threatened secondary sanctions and tariffs on Russia. Don't know he's going to follow through, but he has also said the US won't continue to fund Ukraine indefinitely and that Europe needs to step up. The official noted Moscow has stalled on negotiations, obviously rejected a ceasefire proposal agreed by Kiev, having promised on the campaign trail to end the fighting in a day. Ha right, us President Donald Trump more recently said Russia has to get moving. No shit, donald.
Speaker 1:Despite US officials holding talks with Ukrainian-European counterparts on Thursday in what the State Department touted as an excellent exchange and progress being made toward a landmark minerals deal between Washington and Kiev, peace still feels out of reach. Meanwhile, a partial ceasefire on energy infrastructure brokered by the US came to an end on Thursday, an agreement both sides frequently accused each other of violating. So what would a move on look like? You know Trump and Rubio saying, in essence, we need to move on. So what exactly does we need to move on? Look like you know Trump and Rubio saying, in essence, we need to move on. So what exactly does we need to move on look like? Well, here's one interesting option that someone's proposing. The option might be to redouble the US military support for Ukraine.
Speaker 1:Despite Trump's efforts to court the Kremlin, or perhaps because of them, russian intransigence has emerged as the main obstacle to peace, such as Moscow's foot-dragging over Trump's proposed 30-day ceasefire, to which Ukraine alone has agreed. Now, admittedly, fresh deliveries of billions of dollars more of American arms to Ukraine may be an unpopular policy U-turn among some Trump supporters, but a newly invigorated Ukrainian pushback on the battlefield could encourage the Kremlin to reassess its negotiating position. New, properly tough US sanctions on Russian oil and gas and those who buy it have also been touted as a potential means of applying maximum pressure on Moscow. Look, these people are incompetent. All of my listeners, I think, understand this. Trump is not this stable genius. He's this delusional lunatic. He has no clue other than bullying people. So I don't know what's going to happen other than bullying people. So I don't know what's going to happen. And I personally loved hearing about the possibility of interjecting more military aid and money into Ukraine to push through against Russia. I think that's important, but I just don't see Trump doing that.
Speaker 1:Key regulators approve a merger of Capital One and Discover. That's right. The two credit card companies paving the way for a new biggest credit card company. There could very soon be a new biggest credit card company in the United States. Capital One and COF received approval from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to acquire and merge with Discover Financial Services DFS. The agencies announced Friday To get full approval. Capital One must provide the OCC with a plan to address the underlying root causes of any outstanding enforcement actions against Discover Bank and plans for remediation of harm.
Speaker 1:Now the all-stock deal first announced over a year ago would give Capital One a major leg up against competing credit card issuing banks such as JPMorgan, chase, bank of America, bac and Citicorp, which don't process transactions themselves. It would also give Capital One a new source of revenue from the merchant fees it collects. For existing Discover customers. The move could increase merchant acceptance rates, but there's also a risk that they could face higher credit card interest rates. So again, two companies merging. It's all about the money. We know this. Who gets screwed in the process? The consumers. Higher rates, less acceptance of the Discover card Nothing new under the sun in America with pure capitalism by Capital One and Discover to benefit, probably Capital One more.
Speaker 1:That's all that's happening. We lose, they win. Can Trump fire Jerome Powell? The Supreme Court may soon offer some clues.
Speaker 1:President Donald Trump's call for the termination of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell landed Thursday as the Supreme Court is weighing a fast-moving appeal over two independent agencies. That has increasingly become a proxy battle for control of the nation's powerful central bank. A decision in the emergency appeal could enable Trump to assert control over independent agencies as he tries to subsume their power within the executive branch, or it could significantly slow that effort. Now an issue for the Supreme Court is Trump's firing of senior officials at two independent agencies that oversee workplace protections for federal employees. Those officials who are fighting to be reinstated say that if Trump wins in the Labor Board's case, it will swing open the door for an overhaul of the Federal Reserve. Jerome Powell of the Fed, who is always too late and wrong, yesterday issued a report which was another and typical complete mess. Trump posted Thursday on social media. Powell's termination cannot come fast enough, trump added.
Speaker 1:The Trump administration underlying a goal is made clear in a letter to Congress earlier this year is to overturn a 1935 precedent that allowed Congress to require presidents to show cause, such as malfeasance, before dismissing board members overseeing independent agencies. Now such a decision could have vast implications for a host of agencies Congress set up to be independent listen carefully independent from the political whims of Donald the delusional and his White House. But Trump has argued that neither courts nor Congress should stand in the way of his efforts to capture more control of those agencies by firing their leaders. The president should not be forced to delegate his executive power to agency heads who are demonstrably at odds with the administration's policy objectives for a single day, much less for the months that it would likely take for the courts to resolve this litigation. It would likely take for the courts to resolve this litigation. Solicitor General D John Sawyer, the Trump administration's top appellate lawyer, told the Supreme Court earlier this month the litigation over the two labor agencies will likely ultimately tee up a question about a key 1935 Supreme Court precedent Humphreys Executor v US that allows Congress to put some distance between the White House and the independent agencies. Overturning that ruling by Trump through the Supreme Court would give presidents immense power to sweep away from service officials who enforce antitrust laws, labor rules and disclosure requirements for publicly traded companies.
Speaker 1:So this is like a land grab by Donald Trump. More of a power grab, more powers coming to me. Look at me. I'm the stable genius. I'm the guy who can solve everything in 24 hours or less. Right Garbage. And that's what's happening Now. If the Supreme Court rules in Trump's favor, ladies and gentlemen, wolfpack listeners, then there's no stopping Donald Trump on anything, is there? This is an unbelievable power grab by Donald and again, I'm waiting, you're waiting, half of America's waiting to see. Will the courts stand up to Donald? Will they finally be able to say no, the emperor has no clothes and you can't do that? And finally, stepping away from the negative stories, I try to leave you with something lately in the last couple of episodes, with something different, in a positive frame of mind. So I'm going to share with you this uplifting story.
Speaker 1:An 81-year-old restaurant server. That's right, she's 81 years old and still serving as a waitress in a restaurant. She's named Betty. She's in Pittsburgh. As a waitress in a restaurant. She's named Betty, she's in Pittsburgh. She must have been smiling the rest of her shift because a woman had given her an outsized $40 tip. She might have thought that was the end of their interaction, but Betty could not have imagined what that $40 tip would lead to. Tammy Konzier, a Pittsburgh-based eth-vetician and TikToker hope I pronounced that right had taken her son Leo to eat at a local restaurant called Eat and Park. And when she heard Betty confide to another customer that she struggled to finish out her shifts from back pain but couldn't retire because of financial difficulties, she gets a $910 Social Security check in the mail and basically that's not enough she conveyed to another diner Moved by Betty's plight. She overheard this.
Speaker 1:Conzier whipped out her phone and pressed record. If I make one video go viral, let it be this one. Tammy the TikToker said describing to her fans on TikTok Betty's situation. She announced she'd give any proceeds that her TikTok creator rewards program might generate from the post to Betty and postscripted the video by offering Betty $40 or all the money in my purse in my purse. Betty was moved and grateful and ensured Conzier that even at 81, she could still outdo all those whippersnappers. So Conzier got her wish.
Speaker 1:The TikTok post went viral Within 24 hours. She had received so many requests for a place to donate. She had to set up a GoFundMe to channel the generosity. Well, wolfpack listeners at $140,000. Later she went to tell Betty the news. I think I'd better get a financial advisor. The 81-year-old Betty said, clearly stunned you don't know what this is going to help me for, for Conzier posted a couple of updates on the situation of Betty and every time the GoFundMe swelled until it reached ready $300,000. I cannot express how grateful Betty is for her retirement fund. Conzier wrote in the final update on the fundraiser my lawyer, max Petrunia, and I have set Betty up with an elder law attorney Colin Morgan of Julian Gray Associates. We are in the process of setting up a trust fund for Betty so her social services are not affected. Thank you again for your donations. Tammy said we expect to close the GoFundMe at the end of April. That's cool. 81-year-old waitress Betty, a diner, overhears about her plight and her struggles, decides to post a video, gets response, does a GoFundMe and $300,000. At that point. It's nice that some people help others and thank you for that. Tammy and Betty, we hope you can finally relax in 81 and not have to work so hard.
Speaker 1:If you, the Wolfpack listeners, have any comments on today's episode, this particular story, any feedback at all, say hello, take a minute out of your day to send me a text, an email or a voice message. I'm to send me a text, an email or a voice message. I'm not asking for a lot people. I do like hearing from you, the listeners. Thank you in advance. You have the email, you have the phone number. You can reach me on Blue Sky and if you're not sure about my contact information, listen to a previous episode or look at the bottom in the transcripts. I'll be back again Monday. This is A World Gone Mad. I'm Jeff Allen Wolfe and without your comments, your feedback, your engagement, I'm sitting in a room talking to myself. Hint, hint, stay hopeful.
