"Do you know what he's being arrested for?"
NPC: "I don't give a shit what he's being arrested for."
NPCs don't even know why they get mad about anything. Like a dog not knowing why it's barking.
Walmart raises profit outlook despite higher tariffs
Walmart is getting hit by tariffs, like every other business in America. But customers are still flocking to Walmart because they believe the retailer offers them the biggest bang for their buck.
The retail behemoth once again on Thursday showed how it uses its size to dominate the industry. Its economies of scale help keep prices as low as possible, even as Trump’s tariffs raise costs. Walmart also relies on its strength in groceries and necessities to win over shoppers looking for discounts. More than half of Walmart’s sales come from groceries.
Walmart said Thursday that sales at US stores open for at least a year jumped 4.8%, and it gained market share across income groups, led by growth with upper-income households. The company also raised its sales outlook for the year.
CEO Doug McMillon said that tariffs have created pressures for the company and its seeing its “costs increase each week.” But it’s keeping prices down “for as long as we can.”
Customers have not made major shifts to their purchasing behavior because of tariffs, he said, but some middle and lower-income households have stopped buying some discretionary products that have gone up in prices.
“Value is still en vogue. That’s the key message from Walmart,” Neil Saunders, an analyst at GlobalData Retail, said in a note to clients. “Broad consumer and macro trends remain favorable to Walmart.”
Still, Walmart’s stock fell 3% during pre-market trading. The company missed analysts’ profit forecasts. Heading into Thursday, Walmart’s stock had increased 36%.
Walmart is surging ahead of its rivals, such as Target and Home Depot. Target, in particular, is in a funk and its CEO is stepping down.
Target on Wednesday reported sales fell for the third consecutive quarter. Shares tumbled 6%. Target has been one of the worst-performing stocks on the S&P 500.
Target CEO Brian Cornell is stepping down after 11 years at the retailer, as the company faces slumping sales and backlash to its retreat on DEI. He will be replaced early next year by Michael Fiddelke, Target’s current chief operating officer. Some investors and analysts criticized the move, arguing Target should have hired an outside voice to lead the company.
The company’s business is falling behind Walmart because it stocks more non-essential goods such as home decor than Walmart. Many shoppers, strained by inflation over the past several years, are buying fewer discretionary products and focusing on essentials.
Target also imports about half of its merchandise, compared to roughly 33% at Walmart, so it needs to raise prices at almost double the rate of Walmart to mitigate the tariff impact, Bank of America analyst Robert Ohmes said in a report this week.
https://lite.cnn.com/2025/08/21/business/walmart-stock-target
Trump half-billion-dollar civil fraud fine overturned by New York appeals court
-A New York state appeals court voided a more than $500 million civil fraud penalty imposed on President Donald Trump.
-The court said the penalty violates the U.S Constitution’s Eighth Amendment, which prohibits “excessive fines.”
-New York Attorney General Letitia James said she would ask the state’s highest court to overturn the revocation of the fine.
-James noted that other nonmonetary penalties imposed on Trump, his Trump Organization and others were maintained by the ruling.
A New York state appeals court on Thursday tossed out a massive monetary fine for civil business fraud imposed on President Donald Trump, his company, and other defendants related to a lawsuit by state Attorney General Letitia James.
The appeals court said the eye-popping penalty — which rose to more than $500 million since it was imposed in early 2024 — violates the U.S Constitution’s Eighth Amendment, which prohibits “excessive fines.”
But the court in the same ruling upheld Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron’s finding that Trump and the others committed business fraud by overstating the value of real estate assets owned by the Trump Organization to boost Trump’s purported net worth. Those actions helped the company get better loan terms and other financial benefits.
The ruling Thursday also upheld nonmonetary sanctions imposed by Engoron on the defendants, saying they were “well crafted to curb defendants’ business culture.”
The decision was issued by a five-judge panel of the First Judicial Department of the New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division.
James said she will ask the state’s highest court to overturn the decision related to the fine.
The ruling, which came 11 months after oral arguments in the case, was split several ways, with one judge, David Friedman, saying he would have dismissed James’ lawsuit outright.
In a concurring opinion on the fine being voided, Judge Peter Moulton wrote, “While harm certainly occurred, it was not the cataclysmic harm that can justify a nearly half-billion-dollar award to the state.”
James “did not carry her initial burden” of establishing the rough total of the profits “causally connected” to the defendants’ violations, Moulton wrote.
“Indeed, the calculation of the disgorgement in this case was far from a reasonable approximation,” Moulton wrote.
Trump crowed about the ruling in a post on Truth Social.
“TOTAL VICTORY in the FAKE New York State Attorney General Letitia James Case!” Trump wrote.
“I greatly respect the fact that the Court had the Courage to throw out this unlawful and disgraceful Decision that was hurting Business all throughout New York State,” the president said.
“Others were afraid to do business there. The amount, including Interest and Penalties, was over $550 Million Dollars. It was a Political Witch Hunt, in a business sense, the likes of which no one has ever seen before.”
Eric Trump, the president’s son and one of the defendants in the lawsuit, in a social media post, wrote, “Total victory in the sham NY Attorney General case!!! After 5 years of hell, justice prevailed!”
Eric Trump, with his brother Donald Trump Jr., operates The Trump Organization. Both Donald Trump Jr. and the company were defendants as well.
James, in her statement saying she would ask the New York Court of Appeals to restore the fine, also said, “The First Department today affirmed the well-supported finding of the trial court: Donald Trump, his company, and two of his children are liable for fraud.”
“The court upheld the injunctive relief we won, limiting Donald Trump and the Trump Organization officers’ ability to do business in New York,” James said.
“It should not be lost to history: yet another court has ruled that the president violated the law, and that our case has merit.”
The trial judge, Engoron, in February 2024 ordered Trump to pay around $454 million in total penalties after holding him liable for business fraud.
Engoron found that Trump’s statements of financial condition, signed between 2014 and 2021, overvalued his assets from between $812 million and $2.2 billion.
With interest, the penalty imposed on Trump and other defendants in the case has grown to more than $500 million.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/21/trump-fraud-new-york-appeals.html
Texas House passes redistricting map, adding 5 Republican seats in Congress by vote of 88-52
https://x.com/ThePatriotOasis/status/1958296733425021155
Latest Details of U.S.–EU Trade Agreement
-Tariffs capped at 15% on EU exports to the U.S.
-Section 232 tariffs apply to semiconductors, lumber, and other goods
-EU commits to $750B in U.S. energy purchases
-$600B in potential EU investment in U.S. infrastructure and manufacturing
-Pharma tariffs capped at 15%; MFN pricing applies to generics only
-15% tariff on EU cars unless EU reduces industrial duties
-Mutual recognition of safety and emissions standards
-EU to eliminate tariffs on all U.S. industrial goods
-Expanded access for U.S. seafood and agricultural products
-No changes to EU digital regulations (Digital Services Act remains)
-EU to increase purchases of U.S. defense equipment
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/21/us-eu-trade-agreement-details.html
I think I'm desensitized to winning. There are worse things to suffer from I suppose.
State Department to review all 55 million people with U.S. Visas for ‘deportable violations’
-The Trump administration says it's reviewing all the more than 55 million people with U.S. visas for potential deportable violations
-The State Department said Thursday visas that allow people to stay in the United States are revoked any time if there are "indicators of overstays, criminal activity, threats to public safety, engaging in any form of terrorist activity, or providing support to a terrorist organization"
-In a written answer to a question posed by The Associated Press, the department says all U.S. visa holders are subject to "continuous vetting" with an eye toward any indication they could be ineligible for the document
In a written answer to a question posed by The Associated Press, the department said that all U.S. visa holders are subject to "continuous vetting" with an eye toward any indication that they could be ineligible for the document.
Should such information be found, the visa will be revoked and, if the visa holder is in the United States, he or she would be subject to deportation.
The department said it was looking for indicators of ineligibility, including visa overstays, criminal activity, threats to public safety, engaging in any form of terrorist activity, or providing support to a terrorist organization.
"We review all available information as part of our vetting, including law enforcement or immigration records or any other information that comes to light after visa issuance indicating a potential ineligibility," the department said.
Since President Donald Trump took office in January, his administration has thus far focused on deporting migrants illegally in the United States as well as holders of student and visitor exchange visas. The State Department's new language suggests that the re-vetting process, which officials acknowledge is time-consuming, is far more widespread.
The administration has steadily imposed more and more restrictions and requirements on visa applicants, including requiring all visa seekers to submit to in-person interviews.
But the review of all visa holders appears to be a significant expansion of what had initially been a re-vetting process focused mainly on students who have been involved in pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel activity.
Officials say the reviews will include all the visa holders' social media accounts, law enforcement and immigration records in their home countries, along with any actionable violations of U.S. law committed while they were in the United States.
"As part of the Trump Administration's commitment to protect U.S. national security and public safety, since Inauguration Day the State Department has revoked more than twice as many visas, including nearly four times as many student visas, as during the same time period last year," the department said.
Earlier this week, the department said that since Trump returned to the White House, it has revoked more than 6,000 student visas for overstays and violations of local, state and federal law, the vast majority of which were assault, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs and support for terrorism.
It said that about 4,000 of those 6,000 were due to actual infractions of laws and that approximately 200–300 visas were revoked for terrorism-related issues, including providing support for designated terrorist organizations or state sponsors of terrorism.
https://spectrumlocalnews.com/mo/st-louis/politics/2025/08/21/trump-administration-reviewing-all-55-million-people-with-u-s–visas
Biden’s White House Spokesman Says They Spoke in Person Only Twice In 4 Years
A White House spokesperson for President Joe Biden has testified that he only spoke to the then-chief executive in person twice, Republican Rep. James Comer told reporters Thursday.
Ian Sams, who testified in front of a House committee about the MAGA-led conspiracy surrounding an autopen Biden used to sign legislation and pardons, was a spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office from mid-2022 to August 2024.
Sams was one of Biden’s staunchest defenders last year, combating claims that the former president displayed signs of significant cognitive decline in his final year in power.
Comer, of Kentucky, countered on Thursday that it would be difficult for Sams to know the actual state of Biden given their limited interaction.
“He communicated with Joe Biden two times,” Comer said, citing Sams’ testimony, which has not been made public. “He saw Joe Biden—talked to Joe Biden—two times, the entire stint as White House spokesperson, but yet he would, every day, tweet and issue statements from the podium of the White House.”
The lawmaker clarified in a statement to Fox News that Sams also spoke to Biden once over the phone and on a virtual call in another instance. That raises their total interactions to four—about one every six months.
Sams left the White House in August 2024 to join the presidential campaign of Kamala Harris, meaning he was not part of the Biden administration during the period being probed by Republicans for unauthorized use of an autopen.
Comer credited Sams’ willingness to answer all questions from the House Oversight Committee, calling it “the most informative” interview he has conducted to date in his probe into Biden.
A spokesperson for Biden declined to comment.
The former president, 82, has been notably quiet during the chaos of MAGA 2.0, aside from a mixed-bag appearance in May on The View, where he at times struggled to string together a complete sentence, and a speech in July to the National Bar Association in Chicago. His office announced in May that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Biden and those close to him have denied that cognitive issues marred the latter half of his term. They have also denied that anyone aside from Biden was calling the shots from the West Wing.
Comer, a top Trump ally, is not convinced.
“If the White House spokesperson was being shielded from the president of the United States, who was operating the Oval Office?” he said Thursday.
Sams is the 11th former Biden aide to be questioned by the committee.
Comer alleges that it is Biden’s final months in power that are the most likely to have involved nefarious actions from within the administration. Despite his claims, he has yet to provide any proof to date that anyone besides the ex-president controlled his autopen or made decisions from the Oval Office.
“There were very few people around Joe Biden, especially at the end, and that’s when the majority of the pardons and executive orders were signed with that autopen,” Comer said.
Several former presidents have used an autopen, including Barack Obama.
Biden never hid the fact that he uses an autopen, having utilized the device to make signatures since 2021, the first year of his term. The MAGA conspiracy regarding the device centers on whether Biden was aware of its use each time, with Trump among those on the right who are pushing the conspiracy that he was not.
https://dnyuz.com/2025/08/21/bidens-white-house-spokesman-says-they-spoke-in-person-only-twice/
https://x.com/liz_elkind/status/1958515252531707970
Joe Biden without his skin.
Fed official is COOKED—Panel explodes over Lisa Cook's SHOCKING mortgage scandal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUJBn0gsVmQ