The Week that was ...
Ending Sunday, May 5. 2025
Welcome to the latest edition of The Week that Was, my rundown of what happened last week, curated, in the loosest sense of the word, for your reading pleasure, or displeasure.
The news out of Gaza is worse than ever. And, is the breathless excitement about Trump’s declining poll numbers wishful thinking? Waltz takes a forced waltz. ICE capades are expensive. And solar power follies, May Day protests, countries vote against Trump; and Emma Vigeland does a very good job on The Majority Report. And book recommendations! Okay, one recommendation.
1. Photo of the Week: Smokes Rises over Gaza Following Another Israeli Airstrike
2. Trump Polls? Up, Down Massively, or Is Wishful Thinking a Contagious Disease?
3. Forced Waltz; Marco Advances
4. ICE Capades Are Not Cheap
5. Solar Power Problems in Spain and Portugal: Is It the Technology, or Geography?
6. Germany Received 99% of Its Electric Power from Renewables—at Least for a Day
7. May Day Protests—in America!
8. Oh Canada!
9. Australia Votes for Labor
10. Reforestation in Oaxaca, Mexico
11. Watch This: Emma Vigeland’s May Day Program on The Majority Report with Sam Seder
12. Recommended Book: Gomorrah, by Roberto Saviano
1. Photo of the Week: Smokes Rises over Gaza Following Another Israeli Airstrike
© AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg
2. Trump Polls? Up, Down Massively, or Is Wishful Thinking a Contagious Disease?
Well, there have been massive, or perhaps numerous is a better adjective, headlines and such, talking about the incredible stupefying decline in Trump’s poll numbers.
But Trump voters, who, alas, and it must be remembered, delivered a plurality of votes cast in the 2024 election to Trump, are still confident that that decision was the right one.
“As President Donald Trump nears the 100th day of his second presidency, polling shows Americans largely disapproving of his handling of the economy, tariffs, and recent stock market turmoil.
“But his 2024 voters largely say they're still confident in his handling of the economy, and they overwhelmingly stand by their vote for Trump.
Skipping down in the article, one is treated to this information:
“But among Americans who voted for Trump in 2024, 87% approve of how he is handling the economy, while 78% approve of his handling of tariffs. A softer 71% said they approve of his handling of recent turmoil in the stock market.
“Furthermore, among 2024 Trump voters, 74% think his economic policies will put the U.S. economy on a stronger foundation for the long term; at the same time, 45% of those voters think it's very or somewhat likely that his economic policies will cause a recession in the short term.”
And note this:
“An overwhelming 96% of those who voted for Trump believe how they voted was the right thing to do.”
The one voter whom the ABC reporter quoted, Jessianna Bartier, had this to say about Trump and her reasoning:
"’I believe Trump will turn things around; I'm glad he's president,’ said Jessianna Bartier, 53, of Ohio. ‘With Biden, I felt there was so much waste. He was causing a lot of damage economically,’ she said, and she had felt depressed by the former president's efforts. ‘Trump has definitely got his work cut out for him.’" ….
“Bartier, a former flight attendant, now works as a bartender and lives in Ohio. She said she used to be a Democrat but became Republican as she ‘started dating more mature men.’"
I’ve never heard Trumps voters described as “mature.” It is a funny world.
The fourth paragraph departs from the sunny view of Trump voters for an undefined broader perspective. I would suggest the subordinate clause at the end of the last sentence is seriously worth noting:
“According to a new ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll, only 39% of Americans approve of how Trump has handled the economy; fewer approve of his handling of tariffs on imported goods or recent stock market turmoil. Seventy-one percent of Americans said that Trump's handling of tariffs will contribute to inflation in the United States, although 59% think tariffs will create more manufacturing jobs.
59% of Americans think that Trump’s tariffs will create more manufacturing jobs. Not just Trump voters.
This is the seriously weak spot in so much of the Establishment Democratic Party’s attacks on the tariffs. There is no acknowledgment that their policies hollowed out the American economy and made space for Trump. Their attacks are, essentially, Trump’s tariffs are going to take away your goodies. As New York Senator Chuck Schumer attacked in this now widely mocked news conference, which you can now see in its entire 3 hour and 8-minute entirety, courtesy of the Times of India:
LIVE | ‘From $830 To $1200’: Senate Leader Roars at Trump Over Tariffs | Trump News | Trade War
You can stop streaming after a few seconds, seriously.
But note: Although Schumer was mocked for that appearance, that reasoning still prevails in the Democratic Party establishment.
I can see the 2028 ads for the Republican nominee for President, Donald J. Trump, Jr., running with J.D. Vance as Vice President: “Stay the Course!”
Because Reagan used “Make American Great Again,” and it worked. So “Stay the Course,” alas, makes sense. It’s back to the 1980s, interrupted only by the pandemic. Which is, truth be told, the only reason Biden won in 2020.
3. Forced Waltz; Marco Advances
Well, Signalgate was over a month ago, although it seems like a lot longer time ago, these days.
But Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is keeping his job.
However, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz was not so lucky, although his new gig seems less demanding.
“President Donald Trump said he will nominate Michael Waltz, his current national security adviser, to be the next US ambassador to the UN, sidelining a top aide who drew a wave of criticism for inadvertently adding a journalist to a Signal group chat where officials discussed sensitive attack plans.”
Sensitive attack plans? Is there any other kind?
Michael Waltz will waltz up here to New York City to visit the UN Headquarters from time to time. His role as US Ambassador to the United Nations will consist in large part of vetoing Security Council resolutions, which, if enacted, might have done some good for the world.
“It’s a downgrade for Waltz, who will, if confirmed, move to New York and lose his constant access to the Oval Office. ….
“[U.S. Vice President} Vance cast the decision as a positive for Waltz, saying the former Florida congressman has both his and Trump’s support.
“’I think you could make a good argument that it’s a promotion,’ Vance told Fox News Thursday. ‘Donald Trump has fired a lot of people. He doesn’t give them Senate-confirmed appointments afterwards.’”
Yeah, right. Tell that to Marco Rubio.
Marco Rubio snagged the position Waltz held, while holding on to his gig as Secretary of State.
“The move marks a consolidation of power for Rubio, the onetime Florida Senator who has transformed from Trump foil in the 2016 presidential campaign to one his most vocal and ardent supporters in the Cabinet. He took control of the US Agency for International Development after it was targeted by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. He’s also acting head of the National Archives.”
You read that right. Marco Rubio is now Secretary of State, National Security Adviser, the head of the US Agency for International Development, or at least what is left of it, and is running the National Archives. He’s wearing a lot of hats!
“Marco Rubio will serve as interim national security adviser while keeping his job as secretary of state, Trump said in a post on X. Trump said Waltz “has worked hard to put our Nation’s interests first.”
Julia Ioffe of Puck News, for one, sees similarities between Trump’s behavior and Vladimir Putin’s:
“A couple things of note here. As Gabe Sherman recently pointed out, unlike in Trump 45, Trump 47 is all about a “no scalps” policy—as in, don’t reward the media and other detractors by firing anybody, because it will only whet their appetite for more. Vladimir Putin operates by a similar logic. I’ve written before about the classic Putin move of resisting all pressure to do something, especially in the heat of the moment. Then, once the glare of public attention inevitably moves on, you can do it, but not before. The point is dominance: You show that nobody can control you….
“I’ve heard from Waltz’s former Democratic colleagues on the Hill that he went incommunicado after taking the White House job. A member of Congress who was seen as moderate and eminently sane on matters of national security, and who once co-sponsored bills with Democrats, Waltz severed all ties with the opposite party once Trump picked him. It’s a tale as old as 2016: A normie Republican gets appointed to a Trump job and becomes an entirely different person. The question is: having put their credibility on the line for the job, how long can they keep it? And once they lose that, what do they have left?
“For Waltz, at least, the answer became clear just a few hours later, when Trump pulled another Putinesque move: putting Waltz in the long-vacant U.N. ambassador’s slot and making Marco Rubio interim national security advisor. Putin also plays musical chairs with his cabinet members, rarely adding new blood to a rotating cast of the same old cast of loyalists. (Go and count how many high-level slots Sergei Shoigu has held in the past 20 years.) True dictators only fire people for disloyalty, not incompetence.
“But D.C. foreign policy dorks saw a different comparison: Henry Kissinger. The late and widely reviled NatSec whisperer was the last person to simultaneously hold the positions of national security advisor and secretary of state. But while Kissinger went from national security advisor to secretary of state, Rubio is going from secretary of state to national security—thus finally achieving, as one such D.C. dork pointed out, what the Trump administration has long wanted to do: the reverse Kissinger. Badum-tssss.”
Trump Sidelines National Security Adviser with UN Job Swap
4. ICE Capades Are Not Cheap
The Trump Administration is obviously pursuing a strategy of internal displacement in the U.S. of persons detained by ICE and faced with possible deportation. And this is costing us money. That’s your money, taxpayers.
“A 19-year-old from India picked up near Miami. A 23-year-old Mexican man detained just up the Florida coast in Pompano Beach. An Afghan man arrested in New Jersey. Each of them, at risk of deportation, was flown thousands of miles to a detention center in the rural desert of New Mexico.
“They’re among thousands of people the Trump administration has been shuttling across the country in recent months, boosting the cost to taxpayers while undermining the detainees’ chances of winning their cases. And it’s doing so even when detention space is sometimes available much closer to their homes.
“Immigrants detained by ICE during the first month of Trump’s new term were taken across state lines at higher rates than previous administrations, according to a Bloomberg News analysis of more than a decade of detention records. Some detention centers along the Southern border are accepting detainees from the East Coast for the first time in at least a dozen years.”
Why?
“… more than a decade of government data shows that 70% of immigrants detained in Louisiana and New Mexico end up deported, which is almost twice the rate of those detained in the Northeast, and is well above the national average of 53%. Immigration judges in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi are also among the least likely to grant asylum applications, ….”
In spite of all of this well-publicized activity, though, Trump is still behind—way behind—President Barack Obama when it comes to detaining immigrants and deportations. In other words, when it comes to deporting people, Obama is still kicking Trump’s ass, as this helpful graphic shows:
5. Solar Power Problems in Spain and Portugal: Is It the Technology, or Geography?
On April 28, Spain and Portugal were hit by huge blackouts. The problem? The Financial Times suggests it was too much solar power.
“The inability of Spain’s electricity grid to manage an unusually high supply of solar power was a key factor in Monday’s catastrophic blackout, former regulators and some experts have said.”
At least, that what “some experts” said. Those guys know everything.
And then they went on to explain to The Financial Times that the problem is too much solar power:
“About 55 per cent of Spain’s supply was from solar sources when 15 gigawatts of electricity generation disconnected from the grid within five seconds on Monday afternoon, triggering a wide-ranging shutdown of power systems in Spain and Portugal.
“Several European experts said Spain appeared to lack enough firm power — readily available, reliable energy supply from sources such as fossil fuels or nuclear that can be reduced or raised ….”
The solution is simple! More fossil fuels and nuclear! Of course. Of course, the is the same FT that lambasted AMLO for his supposed love of fossil fuels.
Spain and Portugal blackout blamed by critics on solar power dependency
However, there are other possible explanations. WIRED magazine found some experts—two of them—who went on the record—as in letting the magazine use their name.
“’This generalized blackout occurred because, in just five seconds, more than half of the electricity-generation capacity was lost,, Álvaro de la Puente Gil, professor of electrical engineering at the School of Mining Engineering of the University of León, said in comments to the Science Media Centre (SMC) in Spain. The grid, unable to balance such a sharp drop between generation and demand, protected itself by automatically disconnecting both internally and from the rest of the European grid.
“In comments to the SMC, Miguel de Simón Martín, professor of electrical engineering at the University of León, explains that balance on a grid is typically guaranteed by three things. First is a complex network of interconnected lines, known as meshes, that distribute electrical flows across the grid to prevent overloads. Second, there are interconnections with neighboring countries’ grids [emphasis added], which allow energy to be imported or exported as needed to balance generation and demand.
“Finally, there is something called “mechanical inertia.” Synchronous generators—the large spinning machines that generate electricity in power stations—also store a lot of energy in their very large rotating parts. ….
“’A large, well-meshed grid, with strong interconnections and abundant synchronous generators, will be more stable and less prone to failures,’ says De Simón Martín ‘The Spanish peninsular power grid has historically been robust and reliable thanks to its high degree of meshing at high and very high voltage, as well as its large synchronous generation capacity. However, its weak point has always been its limited international interconnection, conditioned by the geographical barrier of the Pyrenees.’”
The problem is geographic, and not with renewables. Thank you, WIRED.
What Caused the European Power Outage?
6. Germany Received 99% of Its Electric Power from Renewables—at Least for a Day
Some great news came out of Germany last week: On Thursday, the German power grid drew 99% of its electricity from renewables, solar and wind.
“Green electricity will totally dominate Germany’s grid on Thursday, sending power prices below zero again in a reminder of how solar and wind is transforming Europe’s biggest market.
“… Early afternoon tomorrow, as much as 99% of consumption could be met by green energy, according to Bloomberg Models. While not unprecedented, it’s highly unusual and a glimpse into the future as the region forges ahead with the green transition.
“The result is that parts of the day will see negative prices, a phenomenon that’s becoming more common across Europe. While benefiting millions of homes and factories buying electricity on hourly rates ….”
Wow, negative prices! Fantastic! So good for the economy, right?
Think again.
“…it’s a huge headache for investors and developers of green technologies because of lower returns.
Well, we’re not here to serve investors. We’re here to lead our lives.
The bad news for investors and good news for customers should continue, at least in Germany:
“Germany is set to add an unprecedented 17 gigawatts of solar capacity this year, and break that record each year until at least 2030….”
Germany to Get 99% of Its Power From Solar and Wind on Thursday
7. May Day Protests—in America!
Thursday was May 1, the International Workers’ Day, in commemoration of the Hay Market Affair right in here in the US—Chicago, to be precise. It’s a holiday around the world except in the U.S., where it started!
In what is truly a revolutionary change, there were hundreds of protests in support of workers’ rights and against the Trump Administration, around the world and in the USA. That is not the USA I grew up in. May Day was ignored, and Labor Day started off the school year.
May Day demonstrations in US and around the globe protest Trump agenda
8. Oh Canada!
President Trump has had some real successes in other countries. Trump almost single-handedly reversed the decline of the Liberal Party. On January 6, 2025, Justin Trudeau announced his resignation as leader of the Liberal Party and as Prime Minister. At that time, the Conservative Party was leading the Liberals by 17 points.
By the election on April 28, the Liberals had won the election. The Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, even lost his seat in Parliament. His vow to “Make Canada Great Again!” (MCGA) fell on deaf ears.
Good job, Don!
Carney wins Canadian election, while Conservative leader loses his seat in Parliament
9. Australia Votes for Labor
Not content with reviving the Liberal Party in Canada, President Trump also reversed the fortunes of the Labor Party in Australia.
And unlike in Canada, the Labor Party won a resounding victory, the largest the Australian Labor Party has won since the end of World War Two.
“For the second time in a week, voters in a prominent US ally angered by President Donald Trump punished conservatives and re-elected a left-leaning incumbent.
“Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was poised to win the largest victory for his center-left Labor Party since 1946, both in terms of two-party preferred and overall seat count. He’s the first Australian leader to win consecutive elections in more than two decades, and the only one to increase his party’s vote share after one term since World War II.”
At the beginning of this year, the Australian conservative party, which is oddly called the “Liberal” party, was up 6 points in the polls. By the election on May 3, Labor was ahead.
The Liberal Leader, Peter Dutton, made some, uhh, mistakes.
“Dutton made the mistake of trying to paint himself as closer to Trump in the early stages of the campaign. He complimented the US president as ‘shrewd’ and a ‘big thinker,’ while promoting Trump-like policies such as cutting the size of government, return to work for federal employees and ending progressive social policies.”
Not a winning formula, it would seem.
Trump Backlash Helps Australia’s PM to Historic Re-Election
10. Reforestation in Oaxaca, Mexico
In the mountains of Oaxaca reforestation, something urgently needed all over this world (and, I would suggest, necessary for the survival of the human race), is proceeding beautifully.
In Ixtlán, there are community businesses rooted in the land. When Claudia Sheinbaum was running for President of Mexico, one of the points she made was that Mexico has the best reforestation program in the world.
Community Forestry Addresses Environmental Destruction in Mexico
11. Watch This: Emma Vigeland’s May Day Program on The Majority Report with Sam Seder
I highly recommend this episode of The Majority Report with Sam Seder. Emma starts out by noting, and I love this:
“We are broadcasting live, steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA.”
I have been obsessed with the Gowanus Canal since it was orange, through when it was “Brooklyn’s coolest Superfund site,” to its current, somewhat cleaner, but still toxic, state.
Vigeland starts out with a topnotch rundown of news you need but aren’t going to get in the neoliberal press. Then there is a clip of Andrew Cuomo’s younger brother Chris’s embarrassing appearance on News Nation interviewing Trump doing his impression of the Wizard of Oz.
At 28:36, Vigland interviews Shezza Abboushi Dallal, Mohsen Mahdawi’s attorney.
At 44:00, Vigland interviews Astra Taylor, the documentary filmmaker, activist, and co-founder of Debt Collective.
And the last four minutes cannot be missed.
Mohsen Mahdawi Freed; Trump to Steal Debtor Wages? w/ Shezza Abboushi Dallal, Astra Taylor | MR Live
12. Recommended Book: Gomorrah, by Roberto Saviano
Gomorrah, by Roberto Saviano, is an incredible account of organized crime in Naples. Gripping. And you will learn how the incredibly skilled craftsman who, unknowingly, sew the dress that Angelina Jolie wore to the Oscars in 2001 reacted when he saw his work on television. Hint: he was not happy.
