October 29, 2025

Wednesday, October 29, 2025. Annette’s Roundup for Democracy.

A Great President urges the nation to fight.

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This may become our biggest fight for Democracy.

Trump has always made clear the Constitution means nothing to him.

Touch to watch the delusional occupant of the White House.👇

The CPAC is the Conservative Political Action Conference.

They too made clear the Constitution means nothing to them.

But could Johnson be right, that Trump just likes to taunt us?

Maybe so, but take no chances!

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Is the dam breaking?

US Senate passes bill with Republican support to rescind Trump’s tariffs on Brazil

Democrat Tim Kaine, who introduced the resolution in the Senate. Photograph: Nathan Howard/Reuters.

The US Senate on Tuesday approved a measure that would terminate Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on Brazilian imports, including coffee, beef and other products, in a rare bipartisan show of opposition to the president’s trade war.

The legislation passed in a 52-48 vote, with five Republicans – senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and the former Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky – joining all Democrats in favor. The vote took place on day 28 of the federal government shutdown with both sides at loggerheads over spending legislation.

The resolution, led by Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat of Virginia, would overturn the national emergency that Trump has declared to justify the levies, though it is all but certain to stall in the US House, where the Republican-controlled chamber acted to pre-emptively shut down any attempt to block the president’s tariffs. In the unlikely event the measure were to reach the president’s desk, it would meet Trump’s veto.

The US Senate on Tuesday approved a measure that would terminate Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on Brazilian imports, including coffee, beef and other products, in a rare bipartisan show of opposition to the president’s trade war.

The legislation passed in a 52-48 vote, with five Republicans – senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and the former Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky – joining all Democrats in favor. The vote took place on day 28 of the federal government shutdown with both sides at loggerheads over spending legislation.

The resolution, led by Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat of Virginia, would overturn the national emergency that Trump has declared to justify the levies, though it is all but certain to stall in the US House, where the Republican-controlled chamber acted to pre-emptively shut down any attempt to block the president’s tariffs. In the unlikely event the measure were to reach the president’s desk, it would meet Trump’s veto.

“Tariffs are a tax on American consumers. Tariffs are a tax on American businesses. And they are a tax that is imposed by a single person: Donald J Trump,” Kaine said in a floor speech.

While Congressional Republicans have largely declined to rein in the president, Tuesday’s vote revealed an underlying discontent with Trump’s tariffs.

“Tariffs make both building and buying in America more expensive. The economic harms of trade wars are not the exception to history, but the rule,” Republican Mitch McConnell said in a statement on Tuesday. “And no cross-eyed reading of Reagan will reveal otherwise.”

Paul, the sole Republican co-sponsor of the legislation, told reporters on Capitol Hill: “Emergencies are like war, famine, tornado. Not liking someone’s tariffs is not an emergency, it’s an abuse of the emergency power and it is Congress abdicating their traditional role in taxes.”

Trump has imposed 50% tariffs on Brazil, tying them to what he has called a “witch-hunt” prosecution of his far-right ally, the former president, Jair Bolsonaro. In July, he declared a national emergency with respect to “recent policies, practices, and actions of the Government of Brazil” that he said amounts to an “unusual and extraordinary threat”. Bolsonaro was convicted in September and sentenced to 27 years in prison for attempting a military coup in 2022.

“This President has said that their prosecution of a disgraced former politician is a national emergency for the United States. How could that be?” Kaine said in advance of the vote, accusing Trump of attempting an “end-run” around Congress. “If this is a national emergency for the United States, any president of any party could say that anything is a national emergency for the United States.”

Kaine also noted that the US ran a trade surplus of nearly $7bn with Brazil last year.

Trump has argued that the US has been exploited by foreign countries for far too long and that aggressive protectionist policies will benefit US workers and consumers.

Most Senate Republicans are not yet willing to cross Trump, and on Tuesday vice-president JD Vance visited their weekly lunch to emphasize that the administration’s trade policy was “very successful”, according to senator Josh Hawley of Missouri.

Hawley pointed to Trump’s Asia tour, which has resulted in a flurry of trade deals, including an agreed upon framework that would de-escalate tariff tensions between the US and China, the world’s two largest economies. On Monday, Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, spoke with Trump on the sidelines of a regional summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital, with both leaders emerging optimistic that the two countries were on track to reach a trade deal.

“The president is overseas now,” Hawley said. “He’s pursuing trade deals. He’s getting good results. He’s bringing in a lot of revenue, and, you know, it’s been very successful.” (The Guardian)

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Poor Jamaica.

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Broadway - an ever changing world.

A Broadway Tradition Is Fluttering Into History

Broadway plans to replace the cast-change slips that are stuffed into Playbills with QR codes. Some understudies and theater buffs will mourn their loss.

For theatergoers, it produces an all too familiar sinking feeling. You open your Playbill and a little piece of paper flutters out, alerting you that a member of the cast is out and someone unexpected will be performing.

For understudies who are finally getting a turn in the spotlight, though, those little slips offer rare moments of recognition.

Love them or hate them, they are a Broadway tradition on the way out.

A little-noticed provision in the tentative contract agreed to this month between the Broadway League and Actors’ Equity Association would make those inserts — “stuffers” in industry parlance — optional. The deal, which is being voted on by Equity members, allows shows to announce most cast changes through QR codes printed in Playbills, along with either a verbal announcement or a cast list posted in the lobby.

But some Broadway troupers who came up the hard way fear that few audience members will bother to open the QR codes on their phones to see who is performing.

“I understand, from an environmental standpoint, that they’re wasteful, and I understand why producers, cost-wise and for other reasons, don’t want them,” said Julie Benko, who was the understudy of the title role in the recent revival of “Funny Girl” and created her own show, “Standby, Me,” about the four musicals in which she has covered principal roles.

“But,” she went on, “I think the understudies, the swings, the standbys and the alternates do so much work, with so little recognition, so much of the time — this is a little piece of paper that makes sure they’re acknowledged by the people who are watching them.”

Julie Benko, an actress who has been an understudy on a number of big shows, laments the loss of cast-change slips. She said they made sure performers were “acknowledged by the people who are watching them.”Credit...via Julie Benko.

The provision to move to QR codes for cast changes was proposed by producers. Both the union and the Broadway League declined to comment on the change. Members of the union have until Thursday evening to vote on the contract deal, which offers a 3 percent raise in each of the next three years and more money for the health care fund.

Cast changes have become increasingly common — and last-minute — with more actors missing performances since the coronavirus pandemic. Now, those changes may be less obvious.

Alex Birsh, the chief operating officer of Playbill, emailed theaters last week to tell them his company had already put together an “at this performance” landing page for every production, which would be ready for the implementation of the new QR code system.

The inserts, Birsh said in an interview, “are certainly part of a tradition.” Birsh would know — he is the third generation of his family to run Playbill. His grandfather once struck a deal with Western Union to sponsor the cast-change inserts, he said, but the company ended its sponsorship after deciding it didn’t want to be associated with slips that some found upsetting.

“Obviously, sometimes they’re filled with a bit of disappointment, but also they can offer some excitement, because you might be seeing the birth of an incredible career,” Birsh said. “An understudy slip should always be a point of excited curiosity.”

Michael Singleton, an usher at the musical “The Great Gatsby,” stuffed a cast list featuring the latest changes into a program Monday evening, carrying out a preshow ritual that is on its way out.

Broadway lore is filled with stories of understudies who catch a break and make it big. Shirley MacLaine was discovered as an understudy in “The Pajama Game,” when she stepped in for a star who had injured her ankle, and she caught the eye of a movie producer. Sutton Foster became a star when she made the leap from understudy to lead during the pre-Broadway production of “Thoroughly Modern Millie.”

Broadway will not be the first to try a digital alternative. QR codes are already an option for touring Broadway shows in the United States.

There will be one quirky exception. Shows that require audience members to lock their cellphones in pouches (as the Broadway play “Liberation” currently does, following in the footsteps of other shows that feature nudity) will still need to use inserts, since audiences will not be able to access the QR codes.

Jennifer Ashley Tepper, a producer and author of Broadway history books who works as the programming director at 54 Below, a Broadway cabaret club, said she kept “several framed understudy slips from performances when friends and future stars went on for roles that they covered.”

She called the change “a bittersweet shift.”

“The end of understudy slips,” she said, “means yet another physical part of theater history will disappear.” (New York Times)

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My sister’s health makes it that I still can’t return to producing the Roundup on a predictable schedule. Today is today. Who knows what tomorrow may bring.

No matter - remember to vote. Next Tuesday is Election Day. Early voting is happening now. Vote. Take a friend with you to the polls. Remind anyone you can to vote.

We are counting on you.

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