Southern Progressives

Moving to the left, one post at a time.

Author

Bill Freeman
May 16, 2025

National News:

Opulence, business deals and a $400M plane from Qatar: Takeaways from Trump's Mideast tour

President Donald Trump has used the first major foreign trip of his second term to outline a vision for restoring global stability that is grounded in pragmatism and self-interest rather than values.

apnews.com/article/trump-mideast-trip-uae-qatar-russia-ukraine-963b695c94b908a2f9c76271ea9d131b?utm_source=copy&utm_medium=share

An Autopsy Report on Biden’s In-Office Decline

“Five people were running the country,” a political insider told the authors of the new book Original Sin. “And Joe Biden was at best a senior member of the board.”

www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2025/05/biden-original-sin-decline/682818/?gift=kv3__FYls2fxmm4Mh6G3fffnO3T9heN1NR11C2fHDjc&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

Speaker Johnson clings to odd transparency argument to defend Trump’s Qatar jet plan

Republicans are still looking for a defense for the president's plan to accept a superluxury jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar. It's not going well.

www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/speaker-johnson-clings-odd-transparency-argument-defend-trumps-qatar-j-rcna207094

State News:

Case Study - Tri-Share Child Care Program | Think Tennessee

  A cost-sharing plan to provide affordable childcare in Michigan.     Location: Michigan Purpose: The MI Tri-Share Child Care Program

www.thinktennessee.org/case-study/case-study-tri-share-child-care-program

Local News:

Ugh…

Political Cartoon:

Seniors:

Scroll Through This

Some Oldster-adjacent content to read, watch, and listen to.

open.substack.com/pub/oldster/p/scroll-this?r=2cuzj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

My Take:

After watching and reading about the president’s trip to the middle east, I realized the whole trip was business deals, and gifts from the leaders to each other. It made me wonder what are Trumps values? Are they the values of the Amercian people? Most of the countries have problems with human rights violations, none of the was discussed. I have to give him credit for pointing out the stravation in Gaza at one point.

Also reading about Biden in office and how his mental decline was known by those around him and hid away from both the public and media. They made the reference to “Weekend at Bernies” which involves some young people visiting an older Bernie who dies while on vacation, so to extend the vacation the young people dress Bernie up with sunglasses and prop him up in chairs to make him look like he is still alive. They give many examples in the book “Original Sin” about the decline of Biden and how it was known by those around him.

I am guilty of not wanting to know too much about this, due to having Trump kept at bay and not involved in any way with running the county. But now that we know all the concerns about a president in decline, I would recomend they we monitor Trump, because he displays the same type of behavior if not worse than Biden has done in the past, 25th amendment anyone??

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