A website readers should know about. Clearly an Establishment establishment, that site. Dem Establishment, perhaps? And?

https://www.justsecurity.org/ 

Always check the ABOUT page and note when sites don't bother.

When they tout About, know who you're dealing with.

It is a site that declines to focus upon Trump's modifications of prior trade policy issues while keen on other dimensions of international law.

Interesting mix of topics, here and here fuzzing things (while BDS seems simple but goes unmentioned), and then here and here regarding a criminal but lucrative trade issue. Two screen captures, home page first:

 

 

click either image to enlarge and read

Who are these guys? Sniff around the site and make your guess.  That guess will define how you handle the site if you intend to seek it out in the future. High stakes law firm types, but beyond that, who?

Enjoy.

UPDATE: A very convenient "Litigation Tracker" is kept by the site of Trump 47 litigation history. Someone at the site keeps track of diverse sources and keeps the catalog/commentary current. 

More dancing is due on the grave to where the grass gets trampled.

Trampled. 

After this embarrassing fiasco, there will be the paired teleprompters in Arizona. 

Good health? Good reading? 

Good grief. The Donald of the United States. 

Apparently that speech has yet to be posted on whitehouse.gov

 

 

Young Turks have been doing some powerful reporting. They have a channel, so they have to fill time where tuning in you may see, Ho Hum, so and so. But when you find YouTube sidebar availble content, there is dynamism. [UPDATED]

Saying that, four time-to-view items to better understand today or yesterday, here, here, here and here. You can say you don't like or agree with anything, but take the time to know what it is you discuss. Those four items are thought provoking, to Crabgrasss. The MTG one in particular paints an unfamiliar portrait of somebody I was possibly too dismissive toward. The other three, saying things online I appreciate, but have not seen fair MSM attention to them. View, think, and enjoy a challenge or two toward propagandized outlooks "set in stone."

 There is more YouTube content I have loaded into browser tabs but as yet unviewed, so after viewing it, this post may be updated to reflect additional challenging content.

_____________UPDATE____________

It is interesting The Young Turks website has posted to YouTube other sometimes strident ongoing coverage critical of Israel conduct in Gaza, critical of the Israeli strike in Doha, and critical of Israel in general. You can research it. Example, search = The Young Turks criticism israel youtube

That parallels the reported recent Turkish break of relations with Israel, and Turkish officially criticizing Israel publicly.

Example search = turkey israel diplomatic relation -- while testing different time frames beyond anytime

One item returned, Wikipedia on that history, including  ref to speculation that Erdogan speaks to his public more sternly than private relations may be, e.g., this image from the wiki report.

 

Right wing Charlie Kirk understudy moves to tour spot No. 1 in Minnesota tour stop [UPDATED - coverage link, after event]

 There's not a lack of those wanting to be top dog of disdain:

By Imani Cruzen | icruzen@pioneerpress.com | Pioneer Press

UPDATED: September 15, 2025 at 9:29 AM CDT

Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and close ally of President Trump, who was shot and killed Wednesday at a Utah college event was scheduled to appear at the University of Minnesota on Sept. 22.

Michael J. Knowles attends the Mr. Birchum Series Premiere on May 07, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Araya Doheny/Getty Images for DailyWire+)

Kirk co-founded and was CEO of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, with an early focus on proselytizing on college campuses for low taxes and limited government. The political organization eventually grew to holding large rallies with thousands of attendees and featuring top conservative leaders, including Trump.

Student chapter Turning Point USA at UMN scheduled Kirk and Michael Knowles, a conservative political commentator, to speak as part of Turning Point USA’s The American Comeback Tour. The event, scheduled on the Carlson Family Stage at Northrop Auditorium, is described as “a high-energy evening featuring a candid conversation about conservative values, followed by a live Q&A.”

The event is not sponsored by the university and university officials said they had not received an update from the organizers as to whether it was still going ahead as of Friday evening, but Knowles pushed back on a social media user’s urging Thursday night that he cancel public appearances.

“I appreciate the concern, but I will not be canceling any public appearances,” Knowles tweeted on social media platform X.

The beat goes on. Knowles looks as white and willing as Kirk. Not that there's valute to it. He shovels the same stuff, to receptive like-minded grumblers. Who knows? Knowles might even be better at it. The cash cow, Turning Point USA, sees no interruption in churning cash, a purpose in being. Knowles wears his suit well. Bring me the News, posts:

In an announcement Wednesday, the conservative youth organization confirmed that the "American Comeback Tour" event at the Northrop Auditorium will proceed as planned.

It will be presented by Michael Knowles, a host for right-wing media company The Daily Wire, and feature a "candid conversation about conservative values, followed by a live Q&A session."

"This is the event that was originally scheduled with Charlie Kirk before he was assassinated," the listing says. "Turning Point USA is committed to keeping his legacy alive and continuing all of his events."

 Tickets are free but attendees must register in advance, with priority seating for students starting at 5:30 p.m. before general admission at 6 p.m.

You can bring a date if you register both persons. Curiosity seekers may attend, but general admission. 

MSN - further detail -

The free event, hosted by Turning Point USA at UMN, begins at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 22 on the Carlson Family Stage inside Northrop.

It is open to attendees 18 and older with advance registration and a valid government-issued ID.

Priority seating for students with a U Card or other student ID begins at 5:30 p.m., followed by general admission seating at 6 p.m. All attendees must pass through security screening, and Northrop’s special events bag policy will be in effect.

________________UPDATE_____________

Strib reported before the event, etc. Afterwards, MSN carried Strib coverage.

  

Trade policy, actualities, secrecy, multinationals, and such. The "Wild West" scenario of trade among nations, and blocs of nations.

 

 International law is a topic new to crabgrass, as is the current status and flux in trade deals. Secrecy, and the public interest vs big-money players running things is a worry. Dispute resolution, public or private?

Bilateral deals, Trump's thing, exist along with a WTO and lots of multilateral stuff, where pubic need to know can often be regarded as mushrooming the public. (Keep them in the dark and feed them shit.)

Those are meandering thought in taking on the idea of - looking at trade.

Where to start and how to proceed are unknowns so dig in and there is a ton or academic publishing and current status online "blurb" news. 

First item, here, where some Senators worth more respect than others in 2015 wrote a short letter about TPP to a trade rep. The letter seems parallel to the considerations Crabgrass might post - reporting and opinion. The letter flags timely ideas still, with Trump and crew, cutting deals. Absent the four appendix pages, (which are important so review it), this is the letter:

 

click images to enlarge and read

 

In Trump's bilateral deal world, where tariff threat opens discourse, the public trust in process is, if anything, more stressed and stretched to limits. That brings us to, apart from lawmakers, the general public's place in things. Bribes and favors in secret are possibilities, and what access do lawmakers and the public have to the deal negotiations, where treaties need Senate approval to bind.

One mischief readily appoarent, negotiate something, whthhold submission for Senate ratification, and then live by the bilateral deal, both sides, until one balks, saying it never formally went into effectd.

Then repeat the cycle. 

Multilateral deals are likewise open to bribe or favoritism, and can you say Elon, or Big Oil? Or leaving submission to Senate ratification off the table, so US executive decision making can back out of anything.

Those seem to be ground rules of the Big Dog in negotiations, and dispute resolution in multilateral deals grabs onto idealogues yelling, "We will not surrender our sovereignty." 

In effect, things are wide open, nations can play one off against the other, special deals for big players in national economies can be included, and secrecy favors special interests with clout. The whole world can be cartelized and oligopolies can be set to favor public sector economic powers over the poublic interest. Instead of nation states against each other, it can end up being one multinational bloc against others. Bilateral deals are easier to negotiate, because complications and compeating interests abound with the number of parties to a trade bloc agreements. Everyone has to end up happy, or at least satisfied, even if feeling rawly treated. Enough so that nation/players say, okay, even if grumbling.

That is the framework from which Crabgrass will look at stuff online and post additional stuff.

______________UPDATE____________

Besides the Wiki other WTO links: Britannica,  Investopedia, congress.gov, review item

Volvo is selling an electric truck in the U.S. of A. What do you make of that? (Or at least they are advertising an electric one online).

 Link.

Who owns Volvo? Who owns Mack Trucks? And, have you seen the chrome bulldog ornamenting a hood lately?

Is Elon's over the road long haul vision beyond vision, or still a vaporware truck? 

It does appear Volvo has rubber on the road, and Musk, perhaps. I don't know. 

Let me say this about that: https://media.lombardodier.com/image/upload/f_auto,c_fill,w_1000,ar_1200:627/v1750151398/locom/news/2025/06/20250618/Trump_EV_LOgreen.jpg  

 Is there a true schism, or something feigned?

TPP and TIPP and where are we now, where is international trade headed? Expect UPDATING

 Wikipedia - TPPTIPP

Obama was negotiating both, TIPP on the later track. The unions did not feel Obama was protective enough of their interests there was unrest in general, and Trump in the 2016 election positively disowned Obama's effort and the Clintons in turn did disavow it too, Ms Clinton declining to follow the prior administration (something Harris did not do).

Trump criticized Obama and team's negotiations as not tough enough, as he did on the Iran - nuke situation. Trump won.

So TPP and TIPP were scuttled. That's history. Trump tariff war is his current version of negotiating and the courts will have to say what he can do to overcome a feckless Congress, both Houses. Crabgrass gueses judicial finality will be favorable to the imperial presidency, given the fact of a feckless Congress intent on pissing away time with no action.

Recall some ridiculed GATT by calling it Gentlemen Always Talk and Talk. Welcome to Congress.

A latest thing: Forbes, Reuters, and Politico. That sets the table.

Crabgrass has more studying to do but that's the student reading assignment, which Crabgrass sets itself.

Before commenting thinking is best. This post is being started this way because there's little US media attention given to real things and much US media attention given to show. 

People in Honk Kong are reading Crabgrass because they've obvious vested interests in the real things. And Crabgrass in a fumbling way at least will try to post something worth reading. The regular media seem to think let the adults do the necessary, we distract public interest to protect the real things.

Something like that. That's all for now because Crabgrass admits the three "latest things" links are given before Crabgrass study of them.  Before commenting thinking is best. More to come. All for now.

Again, the caveat, this is one eighty year old American thinking and posting, but there may nonetheless be value to what's published. Again, all for now.

______________UPDATE_____________ 

CPTPP: Same day, the two May 2025 linked items say the same thing largely, quoting Reuters:

STOCKHOLM, May 13 (Reuters) - Sweden said on Tuesday it would propose that the European Union join a Pacific rim-based trading group with the aim of forming the world's biggest free trade area to help counter the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs.

The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) is a free trade accord sealed in 2018 between 11 countries - Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. Britain joined last year and China also hopes to join., 

Two South American nations are members, Brazil, not yet as of May 2025. Canada and Mexico the only North American members. Central American nations, absent, including Panama with the canal. Indian subcontinent absent, other BRICS and Islamic states, absent. Ditto all of Africa.

"If the EU and the CPTPP as trade groups link together it would create the biggest free-trade area in the whole world," Sweden's Minister for Foreign Trade, Benjamin Dousa, told Reuters by phone from Japan.

"At a time when the U.S. is closing itself off more and more and becoming inward-looking there are good opportunities for Europe to open itself up... to investment and trade," he said.

Trump's tariff blitz has upended decades of trade practice, shaken faith in traditional alliances and raised fears of a global recession.

Dousa, who is currently on a trade trip to several Asian countries, said Sweden would make its proposal on joining the CPTPP at a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Thursday in Brussels.

Export-dependent Sweden is one of the strongest supporters of free trade inside the 27-nation EU, though Dousa said he expected some member states to be less keen on a CPTPP deal.

"We are ready to take up the fight with countries like France," he said. France has traditionally been more protectionist-minded, especially regarding agricultural produce.

While negotiations could take some time, Dousa said it might be possible to conduct negotiations sector-by-sector and industry-by-industry, meaning concrete agreements could be in place relatively quickly.

Realatively quickly, or not. Crabgrass has May 2025 as its last date of imformation, and needs to search if there is online updating of info. As of today, Wikipedia entry: CPTPP. (Crabgrass has yet to read it.)

Who in Congress, which committees, and what has been done that way are points for attention. There is a feeling of not being kept in the loop as the American public, one member, but how widespread is the media-led ignorance? Not looking, but guessing, whitehouse.gov not worth checking.

There is the term "being mushroomed" where the public might fit under the term.

Crabgrass search, pending = cptpp new membership eu us russia china

Try it yourselves.  Something likely will be returned of value.

FURTHER: The facts of existing trade agreements while Trump holds a tariff war - is it being deliberately downplayed by the Trumpsters, the Democrats, and the US media, or has Crabgrass just been sleeping? 

Downplay being one thing, diversionary stuff being something else. "Need to know" seems at play, by the adults. As in "Look at Epstein, yes and no about releasing stuff" and Gaza, oh my! Dead Kirk. LLMs. Elon. While it can be asked, who gets what share of electric automobile manufacturing, have the adults divided the market already, or are free markets at play, ostensibly or in reality? Sneaksrs and clothing? Laptops? All them phones . . .

FURTHER: Same day, Google Analytics tell me I have had one view of the blog from  Brunei over the past 24 hrs. That's my first from there. I remember Ollie North and the Sultan of Brunei, back in Iran Contra days, and -- here again. Small but wealthy??

Wha's 'appening?