How Will the Billionaires React If Trump Cancels the 2026 Elections?

Trump is hinting he might do what many fear

Dean Baker in Beat the Press

The lack of market reaction to the news that Trump ordered his Justice Department to investigate criminal charges against Fed Chair Jerome Powell surprises many people. 

After all, everyone knows that the claims about cost overruns being the basis for the investigation is nonsense. Trump wants to threaten Powell with criminal charges because he ignored Trump’s demand that he lower interest rates.

This ordinarily would be seen as a very big deal. Ever since Nixon, presidents have been reluctant to be seen as pressuring the Fed. In fact, their concern on this issue often seemed absurd to my view. President Biden didn’t want his Council of Economic Advisors to even comment on interest rate policy, as though giving a view based on the economic data would be undue pressure.

But there is a big difference between presenting an economic argument and threatening to imprison a Fed chair who disagrees. And we now see which side Trump comes down on.

But apparently, the markets are just fine with this new threat. The major stock indexes all rose on Monday, although bond prices fell slightly, pushing long-term rates higher. The dollar also fell modestly.

Can't imagine why

Another Trump patriot

URI music ensembles commence spring performance schedule on Feb. 22

Concert slate will also include special jazz performance featuring URI alumni

James Bessette 

The University of Rhode Island Jazz Big Band will perform during
the Voices in Jazz festival March 5 and will hold a special
concert on April 25 where for the first time University alumni
will take the stage with the band for an all-star show—all at the
URI Fine Arts Center Concert Hall. (URI Photo/Nora Lewis)

The University of Rhode Island Concert Band and Wind Ensemble both intend to send audiences into unique musical mindsets on Sunday, Feb. 22, at 3 p.m. to help kick off the Music Department’s spring semester concert schedule.

The Wind Ensemble and Concert Band, under the direction of URI Director of Bands Brian Cardany, will take the stage at the URI Fine Arts Center Concert Hall, 105 Upper College Road, on the Kingston Campus. The Wind Ensemble concert will center around the theme, “Atmospheres,” set to transport audiences into an aesthetic world.

Pieces to be performed for “Atmospheres” are “Steampunk Suite” by Erika Svanoe, “Diamond Tide” by Viet Cuong, “Catalyst” by Adrian Sims, and “Wild Nights” by Frank Ticheli.

The Concert Band will perform “Liberty Bell” by John Philip Sousa, “Mystery on Mena Mountain” by Julie Giroux, and Steven Reineke’s “Into the Raging River.” Victor Sanchez, a URI graduate assistant, will conduct the Concert Band’s rendition of David Holsinger’s “A Childhood Hymn.”

The Wind Ensemble and Concert Band will also perform live on Sunday, April 26, at 3 p.m. at the Fine Arts Center. Details of that show will be unveiled at a later date.

The annual Voices in Jazz festival will be kicked off by the URI Jazz Big Band, directed by URI Director of Jazz Studies Emmett Goods, on Thursday, March 5, at 8 p.m. at the URI Concert Hall. This year’s festival will welcome guest composer Le’Andra McPhatter, a jazz pianist and organist who founded the Journey Music Academy and Journey Online organizations to cultivate the next generation of musicians.

A President's Day protest in Wakefield with South County Resistance

Just what the Founders would have wanted

Steve Ahlquist

Various Presidents

South County Resistance hosted a President’s Day protest in Wakefield that marched from the intersection of the bike path and Main Street to downtown, where over 100 people gathered at all four corners holding signs and joining in song with Singing Resistance.

The theme of the protest and march was “President’s Day Legacy - From Statesmen to Stooge.” Among the marchers were people dressed as Presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Donald Trump. President Trump was dressed in a prison jumpsuit.

Here’s the video:

Meera Raphael, singer, songwriter, and worship leader in Peacedale, is one of the organizers for Singing Resistance. She led the group in songs that originated on the streets of Minneapolis, from the Peace Poets and resistance movements across the country. These songs, said Raphael, are meant to “nurture the spirit of peace, love, solidarity, and unity.”

“We need to stand together and come together,” said Raphael. “It’s the only way we’re going to get through this… we need more music. Music brings us together and brings harmony in a world full of dissonance.”

Here’s all the video of Singing Resistance:

R.I.P. Rev. Jesse Jackson, died today at age 84

 

Quonset firm reaped millions in state energy incentives.

Now it backs McKee’s plan to gut them.

By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

“No more silent costs,” Gov. Dan McKee proclaimed Monday at an event in Warwick before signing an executive order to roll back state renewable and energy efficiency programs to save ratepayers money on their monthly bills.

Behind him stood leaders of the state’s top manufacturing companies. Each stepped up to the podium to bemoan rising energy costs during the 20-minute press conference. Except one.

John Ranieri, senior director for corporate engineering for Toray Plastics (America), stood silently in the background, smiling as McKee put pen to paper in a recording posted online by independent journalist Steve Ahlquist. 

Ranieri stood in at the last minute for the North Kingstown manufacturer’s CEO, Christopher Roy, who was originally scheduled to attend and deliver remarks alongside executives from igus Inc., Bullard Abrasives, and VIBCO, Laura Hart, a spokesperson for McKee’s office, confirmed in an email Tuesday.

But environmental advocates in the audience, holding signs and wearing green T-shirts, noticed the Toray executive’s silence. They were not invited to speak during the press conference but had plenty to say after about the millions of dollars in state incentives Toray has received through the very programs McKee now wants to weaken.

“It’s disappointing to hear from business leaders about high energy costs without acknowledgement of the ways that those businesses have taken advantage of renewable energy and energy efficiency programs,” Emily Koo, Rhode Island program director for Acadia Center, said in a phone interview Monday afternoon.

Emily Howe, state director for Clean Water Action Rhode Island, called the silence from Toray executives “hypocritical.”

Toray applied for and received a $15.9 million energy efficiency rebate from National Grid in 2013, along with a $1.8 million advanced gas technology incentive to upgrade its 70-acre campus in Quonset Business Park.