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
Supreme Courts Blocks Trump Then Unblocks Him, GOP Hardliners Say NO To Trump, USA Credit Rating Drops
America stands at a crossroads of political turmoil and economic uncertainty. The Supreme Court has temporarily halted President Trump's controversial attempt to use the 1798 Alien Enemies Act for expedited deportations of Venezuelan immigrants, marking a significant setback to his immigration agenda. Though the ruling offers momentary relief, the underlying battle continues across multiple federal courts, highlighting the ongoing tension between executive power and judicial oversight in our democracy.
Meanwhile, Republican infighting threatens to derail Trump's legislative priorities as GOP hardliners defy both the former president and House leadership by blocking his self-described "one big, beautiful bill" in a critical committee vote. These conservative holdouts demand deeper cuts to Medicaid and clean energy programs, creating a political headache for Speaker Mike Johnson who must somehow appease the right wing without alienating moderates whose support is equally crucial. The rebellion exposes the fragility of Republican unity despite Trump's dominance over the party.
Perhaps most concerning for everyday Americans, Moody's Ratings has downgraded the United States' debt, stripping the country of its last perfect credit rating after maintaining AAA status since 1917. This downgrade, following similar moves by S&P and Fitch in previous years, reflects growing alarm about America's ballooning deficits and political dysfunction. The timing couldn't be worse, as Trump's proposed legislative package would add approximately $3.3 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, potentially increasing borrowing costs for everything from mortgages to car loans. Amid this political and economic turbulence, scientific research offers an unexpected respite—Japanese gardens specifically designed to encourage wandering gazes have been shown to reduce stress and improve mood, a small but welcome reminder that solutions to our modern anxieties might be found in ancient wisdom.
Join me each episode as I navigate these challenging times.
Share your thoughts at resistdonaldnow@gmail.com, and help keep our democratic conversation alive during a world gone mad.
AWorldGoneMadPodcast@gmail.com
This is a World Gone Mad. This is a World Gone Mad, mad, mad, mad, mad. With everything that happened this week. This is a World Gone Mad. I'm Jeff Fallon Wolfe and I'm here again to give my commentary on the news. Thank you for joining me, and some of you may have noticed maybe none of you have but there was an episode that was not done Friday, and normally I post an episode late at night and then ready for Saturday. There were some technical problems, so I haven't posted a new episode since Wednesday night, thursday morning. With that being said, let's jump right in. Here we go.
Speaker 1:Supreme Court blocks Trump from restarting the Alien Enemies Act deportations. The Supreme Court on Friday blocked President Trump from moving forward with deportations under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act for a group of immigrants in northern Texas, siding with Venezuelans, who feared they were poised for imminent removal under the sweeping wartime authority. Now the decision was I say that for a reason was a significant loss for Trump, who wants to use the law to speed deportations and avoid the kind of review normally required before removing people from the country. But the decision is also temporary, or was temporary, and the underlying legal fight over the president's invocation will continue in multiple federal courts across the country. Now the justice has sent the case at issue back to an appeals court to decide the underlying questions in the case, including whether the president's move is legal and, if it is, is how much notice the migrants targeted under the action receive. Two conservative justices, of course Clarence Thomas, samuel Alito publicly noted their dissent. The court's unsigned opinion was notably pointed about how the government was attempting to handle the removals and also how US District Judge James Hendricks had dealt with the case at an earlier stage. Now the court referenced another case that had reached it previously, that of the Maryland man, kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly removed to El Salvador. The court noted that the Trump administration has represented that it is unable to provide for the return of an individual deported in error to a prison in El Salvador. Amazing, well, another ruling from the Supreme Court. And I start to get excited that I realize it's temporary Supreme Court. And I start to get excited then. I realize it's temporary because apparently the Supreme Court ruled today that Trump can go ahead. Our Supreme Court is so screwed up right now, our justice system is so screwed up and Trump is just getting away with a lot of garbage. So that's the case nowadays with Donald Trump. Nothing definitive, always gray areas. I realize the law has nuances, but you just wish that for once there would be a definitive slap down on Donald and his illegal actions.
Speaker 1:Gop hardliners defy party leaders and Trump as they vote to block the agenda. Now, president, donald Trump's agenda has been thrown into chaos after a group of GOP hardliners blocked the bill in a key committee vote this past Friday, dealing a major embarrassment to House Republican leaders and Trump himself. Now Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team will now spend the weekend or rather had already spent the weekend trying to win over those Republicans before attempting to take that vote again. But it'll be a tough task to flip the right-wing Republicans who are demanding more spending cuts from Medicaid and from federal clean energy programs, especially as Johnson must, you know, also be careful not to alienate moderates, whose votes he also needs, with any changes to the bill. Now, core right-wing Republicans had warned Johnson and his leadership team, both privately and publicly, that they planned to oppose the vote in the House budget panel meeting, but GOP leaders took the gamble and went ahead with the vote anyway. Five Republicans opposed the bill Friday in the budget committee's meeting. To stitch together the various pieces of Trump's sweeping tax and spending cuts bill. The panel is not empowered to make substantial policy changes during its meeting, but the bill needs to be advanced out of the committee to make it to a full floor vote.
Speaker 1:The no votes were Ralph Norman of South Carolina, chip Roy of Texas, josh Brechin of Oklahoma, andrew Clyde of Georgia and Lloyd Smucker of Pennsylvania. Now there are just a few outstanding issues. I think everyone will get to. Yes, smucker told reporters Friday afternoon, adding that the panel wants to hold a vote, ideally today, and that was already passed. Smucker voted with the GOP hardliners, but only for procedural reasons, so he could call it up again. Their opposition enraged many of their fellow Republicans and many of whom have spent months helping to draft the bill, which includes trillions of dollars in tax cuts and a big boost to the US military and to national security and, of course, largely paid for by overhauls to federal health and nutrition programs and cuts to energy programs. These are people who promised their constituents not to raise their taxes and those five no votes just voted for the biggest tax increase in American history. Gop Representative Tom McClintock of California, who voted in support of Trump to advance the bill.
Speaker 1:Negotiations with leadership are still ongoing. The GOP hardliners have demanded stricter overhauls from Medicaid, specifically putting work requirements into effect immediately rather than waiting until 2029, and deeper cuts to a clean energy tax program. But any changes to the bill could upset Mike Johnson's fragile coalition in the House, where he can't afford any big changes. That would upset the GOP's more moderate members. And Trump himself, who is closely watching any changes to Medicaid, also needs to sign off on changes.
Speaker 1:Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise will continue to work furiously to try to assuage the Conservatives' efforts that included late-night negotiations. Now Roy and other GOP hardliners repeatedly urged Johnson to delay that vote. They warned party leaders, both privately and publicly, that they plan to oppose the vote in the House budget panel that came up on Friday, and they did. But GOP leaders refused to lend to hardliners' demands to delay the vote. Eager to quickly advance the bill, rushing it through. Johnson has said he wants to pass the bill next week on the floor, though that prospect is now uncertain.
Speaker 1:We're working on answers Some of them. We need to get answers from the Trump administration but we got a pretty clear idea of what the final pieces are and we're working through those right now, scalise said. Scalise said that they're in agreement about changes that they want to make, but said they're working through timing implementation. The work requirements for able-bodied adults enrolled in Medicaid, for instance, would not go into effect until 2029, after Trump has left office, and some of the clean energy subsidies which were enacted under Biden wouldn't be phased out for years after that. Scalise said that Trump, who is returning from an overseas trip, has been keeping track of the bill's progress.
Speaker 1:Norman, however, said he is not hurt from the president directly Now. Trump posted to True Social this past week we don't need grandstanders in the Republican Party. Stop talking and get it done. Republicans must unite behind this one big, beautiful bill, trump said. Another one of the holdouts, clyde, had another issue with the bill its failure to remove gun suppressors, also known as silencers, from regulation under the National Fire Arms Act. Now it's not clear if this policy change would make it into the final bill.
Speaker 1:However, gop leaders must follow strict budgetary rules as they draft the package, because they plan to pass it without using Democratic votes, forcing the party to comply with Senate rules that allow a bill to bypass a filibuster. House Budget Chief Representative Jody Arrington could only afford to lose two GOP votes in the committee vote. Now, in a sign of the gravity of the vote, gop leaders pushed to have Representative Brandon Gill, whose wife just had their second child, to return to Washington this past Friday morning for that vote. Two GOP sources previously told CNN on Thursday that Gill would not be in attendance, which would have meant House leaders could only lose a single vote, and they lost five. Look, all this long battle from a faction of the Republican Party opposed to Trump's big, beautiful bill. We all know what's going to happen, right. We all know what's going to happen right. All the Republicans are going to come together in the end and stay the course and vote yes for Trump, and the outcome of the bill passing will be us, the citizens of America, getting screwed again.
Speaker 1:The United States just lost its last perfect credit rating. Thank you, trump. Moody's ratings downgraded the United States' debt on Friday, stripping the country of its last perfect credit rating. The move could rattle financial markets, push up interest rates, potentially creating an additional financial burden for Americans already struggling with tariffs and inflation. Of the three major credit rating agencies, moody's was the lone holdout, maintaining its outstanding rating of AAA for US debt. Moody's held a perfect credit rating for the United States since 1917. It now ranks US credit worthy worthiness one notch below that at triple a double a one it's called. Joining FITS ratings and S&P, which lowered their credit ratings for US debt in 2023 and 2011, respectively, was influenced by the increase over more than a decade in government debt and interest payment ratios to levels that are significantly higher than similarly rated sovereigns, moody said in a statement. Now, moving forward, moody said it expects borrowing needs to continue to grow and for it to weigh on the US economy as a whole.
Speaker 1:Spokespeople for the White House and Treasury Department did not immediately respond. In a statement on X, white House Communications Director Stephen Chung suggested Moody's analysis may be politically motivated, even though previous downgrades from S&P and Fitch came during Democratic administrations. Mark Zandi, the economist for Moody's, is an Obama advisor and Clinton donor who has been a never-Trumper since 2016,. Chong said Nobody takes his analysis seriously. He has been proven wrong time and time again. You know I'm going to interject something. You notice how everyone in the Trump administration are like stupid little 12-year-old children and I don't mean 12-year-old children and I don't mean 12-year-old children are stupid, but these are grown adult business people and experts and political people, and they're acting like kids.
Speaker 1:Moody's initially put the United States on notice for a potential downgrade in November, at the time citing recent events that exemplified America's extraordinary political divide. That included America's near default last summer and the resulting ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy the first time in history a speaker was given the boot during a legislative session and Congress's inability to cement a replacement for weeks. Stable outlook for now at least. Moody said the US is in no immediate danger of being downgraded again. The credit rating agency considers the US outlook stable, in part because of its long history of very effective monetary policy, led by an independent Federal Reserve. President Donald Trump, however, has recently raised questions of whether he'd continue to respect the central bank's independence and, remember has previously threatened to fire Chair Jerome Powell. Aa1 is still quite strong, despite its notch below perfect. The ratings agency noted that America's system of governance, albeit a challenge, gives Moody's confidence that the United States still deserves a near-perfect, if not triple-A, credit rating. The stable outlook also takes into account institutional features, including the constitutional separation of powers among the three branches of government that contributes to policy effectiveness over time and is relatively insensitive to events over a short period. While these institutional arrangements can be tested at times, we expect them to remain strong and resilient, moody said.
Speaker 1:The credit rating agency said that increasing government revenue or reducing spending could restore America's AAA rating. Trump has taken aim at the latter through the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency doggy, I call it that resulting in thousands of federal government workers being laid off and the ousting, or rather gutting, of the US Agency for International Departments, usaid. However, it's unclear that such moves are changing the government borrowing need. Already, the country is approaching a summer deadline for when the US could default on its debt unless the borrowing limit is raised, according to the Treasury Department's estimates. At the same time, trump is pushing Congress to pass his one big beautiful bill act. Don't we love these names from Donald Trump? The package would cut taxes deeply, essentially making permanent the sweeping individual income tax provisions of Trump's 2017 tax cuts and Jobs Act, as well as adding several temporary tax breaks to fulfill the president's campaign promises. It also calls for historic cuts to the nation's safety net, particularly Medicaid here we go again and food stamps, in an effort to cut spending, but the tax revenue loss would still swamp the spending reductions. The package would add $3.3 trillion to the nation's debt over the next decade. According to a preliminary estimate from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, annual deficits would jump from $1.8 trillion in 2024 to $2.9 trillion by 2034, as the federal government would continue to spend more than it would raise in revenue. The committee projected Now why America lost its AAA rating.
Speaker 1:Ballooning deficits, the unique US debt ceiling mechanism and political intransigence have been at the center of its downgrades from all three major credit ratings agencies ratings agencies. In 2011, s&p cited political brinksmanship in America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, less predictable. In 2023, fitch warned of the United States' fiscal deterioration, its high and growing general government debt burden and the erosion of governance. America was running a $1.3 trillion annual budget deficit in 2011, a number that has since risen to a $1.8 trillion last year. Still, the Obama and Biden administrations lambasted both of those decisions. In 2023, janet Yellen said the decision was arbitrary and based on outdated data.
Speaker 1:Now, what another downgrade could mean for Americans? Us debt has long been considered by investors as the safest of safe havens, but Moody's downgrade, along with Fitch's and S&P's, suggest it has lost some of its luster. A downgrade would likely cause US Treasury yields to rise as investors see more risk in lending money to the government. Us Treasuries, particularly the 10-year US Treasury, and influence all kinds of debt. That can happen, from the mortgage rate for the houses Americans buy to contracts written around the world, damaging if our rating gets dropped again. The irresponsible actions from the Republicans lately, and now Trump being in office again, are causing this volatility from the credit unions with their ratings. We always maintained our credit rating and we did whatever needed to be done Until now, and finally, taking a break from the maddening news this is with permission of the Good News Network Let me share this interesting, upbeat story with you, the listener. Let me share this interesting, upbeat story with you, the listener.
Speaker 1:Well-designed gardens help people relax immediately by provoking a wandering gaze. Let me explain that Well-designed gardens help people relax straight away, as they cause viewers to look at them differently, suggests new research. Our gaze shifts quicker and more often in such green spaces, say scientists, who believe their findings could ultimately help people affected by neuro degenerative diseases. The international research team thinks that they may have found the key to understanding the relaxing effects gardens can have on viewers, explaining that such gardens are specifically designed to let the viewer's gaze wander To investigate what is about those gardens that makes people feel more relaxed when viewing them. They went to the Marin-on-Garden in Kyoto, japan, where they assessed the impact on the observer compared to a less maintained garden.
Speaker 1:Well-designed Japanese gardens have evocative and abstract sceneries designed in great detail, said study author Professor Saiko Goto in a media release. These sceneries encourage the viewer to observe longer to understand the composition and meaning of the scenery while the gaze wanders more and faster. Study senior author Professor Kari Harup, a neurobiologist at the University of Pittsburgh in the US, said they found a correlation of rapid gaze shifts and a reduction in heart rate and improved mood, which may also serve as an aid for meditation. The reduction in stress experienced by viewers of a well-crafted Japanese garden is largely due to the design features that lead the viewer to engage in frequent, rapid horizontal shifts in gaze. During a day of maintenance in 2023, the research team was able to get undisturbed access to the Morinan Garden in Kyoto, japan. Similarly, the second garden located at Kyoto University was unpopulated during the time they conducted the experiment there. A total of 16 students observed both gardens for seven minutes.
Speaker 1:The researchers recorded eye movements, heart rates before and during the observation and mood before and after viewing the gardens. Unlike the University Garden and the Marin on Garden, viewers fixation points were spread more widely, covering the entirety of the field of view. Professor Goto, a researcher at Nagasaki University in Japan who specializes in landscape architecture, said to induce such close attention of the viewer, not only quality of design but also quality of the maintenance is important. Viewers gaze keeps moving to seek more fascination on the well pruned trees and speckless ground. Now all the participants indicated that they felt more relaxed, wanted to revisit the garden in Kyoto, which they favored much more than the university garden.
Speaker 1:The researchers said their findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience, could have some similarities to other therapies that utilize eye movements to reduce stress. The positioning of design elements is crucial. While both gardens incorporate water features, stones, trees and a bridge, in the Marin Anne Garden the viewer's gaze is guided through horizontally arranged elements, but in the University Garden the objects of greatest interest are in the center of the visual field. The Marin Anne Garden was designed as a viewing garden that should be appreciated from a specific vantage point relative to the design elements, said Professor Herup. It is this attention to detail that coaxes the eyes into the patterns that relieve stress. Professor Godo believes their work might help people affected by neurodegenerative diseases, saying it could be used as a form of therapy outside of hospitals or senior homes or women's shelters.
Speaker 1:I think it would be good if Japanese gardens are built not just as a luxury but as a means of mental care in our aging society. She concluded. You know, very fascinating this study, and I can only speak for ourselves, as I know our garden in our backyard. Yes, I know it's not equivalent to the Kyoto Garden in Japan, but our garden relaxes Natasha and myself and our Saturday visits each week to the farm. The local farm nearby does the same.
Speaker 1:Again, if you have any comments on this story or anything in this episode or in the podcast in general, you can always reach me at resistdonaldnow at gmailcom and, guys, let me know what you think about the new logo for the podcast. Always look forward to hearing from you. I'll be back again Wednesday with another episode of A World Gone Mad. I'm Jeff Allen Wolf. I always look forward to your comments and remember, without them, I'm sitting in a room. Guys talking to myself, stay hopeful. There is chaos in the world, can't you see? And we need to stand up and preserve. There's chaos in the world, can't you see? And we need to stand up and preserve our democracy. This is a world on men. This is a world on men.
