Sunday, April 06, 2025

Critical Thinking v Tedious Dribble

I have three liberal arts degrees (I’m educated beyond my station in life; that’s all it is), and spent over 20 years teaching English, which is fundamentally all about critical thinking. Believe me: computers and the internet did not blunt critical thinking skills among the populace or the college educated. Critical thinking is damned hard. Most people don’t have the energy, or the bandwidth, to engage in it.

I remember a lawyer telling me, when I was merely a paralegal with an MA, that other lawyers in the firm envied me. I had time to read something besides law cases and contracts. They were quite capable if critical thinking; but their time was not their own. Their critical thinking had to have a focus.

It’s always a scarce commodity.  And it can’t really work in the presence of sheer ignorance:
Which also can’t be blamed on computers and AI. I mean, you can find answers to that question very easily.  There’s never an excuse for stone-proud ignorance. (The better vanilla is Mexican. Tahitian is also nice; but both are more expensive than Madagascar.  And if you don’t know what it’s used in, educate yourself, or stay out of the conversation. It’s possible that’s an actual question. But this is the internet, and trolls are the default setting. You can blame that on the internet; or at least how it’s used.)

This is no small part of the problem, and it was true long before cable television (believe me; I remember the arguments, such as they were, over Vietnam (which always meant the war) and the civil rights movement):
Pundits hate simplicity. If something is simple you don’t have to have pundit expertise to explain it.

Trump Cabinet now has a public record as the stupidest Cabinet in history.

This isn’t complicated. They are stupid rich people. Any analysis that doesn’t begin with their stupidity is stupid.
Pundits also hate accountability. Keeping things abstract keeps people out of them. Discussing ideas is far safer than discussing people. Public discussions must assume those in charge are competent, and merely mistaken, at worst. “Stupid” is a judgment that cannot be indulged. But then, punditry is not really worth all that much, either. It insisted King was wrong about Vietnam. And insisted it for a very long time. It took a long time to turn on “the best and the brightest.”

People don’t like critical thinking because it requires being…critical.

OTOH, maybe we can use the internet to spread this information around:
Donald Trump implores you to look away: How else does he get you to ignore reality?
If this is a boom, I'd like to know what a bust is," Enten said. "I mean, my goodness gracious. We'll talk about, I mean, talk about the S&P 500 – it's dropped 15 percent under Donald Trump's presidency. The S&P 500 has been collecting data essentially since 1957, it's been an index. I went back and I looked for drops of 15 percent with a president who was inheriting a bull market. There's only one dude on your screen, it's Donald John Trump. He is the only one to see a drop of 15 percent this soon into his presidency in the S&P 500 after inheriting a bull market. In fact, there's only only one other president who has had seen a drop of 15 percent this early on in his presidency, and that was George W. Bush back in 2001. But, of course, he was, in fact inheriting the dot-com bubble bust, and so this is truly unique where you come in with a bull market and then boom, right through the floor – Donald Trump, the S&P 500 dropping already 15 percent."

"You look at these numbers, you wouldn't be surprised to see Donald Trump's net approval rating," Enten said. "Compare it now to where it was at this point in the first term, and the first term he was above water at plus-five points. Where is he now? He's way underwater, he is swimming with the fishes. Look at this: He is the worst ever for a president at this point in a term on record at negative-12 points. I just never thought I would see the day because, as we were hinting at at the beginning, Trump promised an economic boom. Voters bought into it, but so far they ain't liking what they're seeing."
I’m sure critical thinking will still save him. He’s always relied on it before.
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Told Ya!

 These tariffs are all about Republican secular morality.

"It's not just the destruction of the economic vitality of the working class," she explained during a Sunday interview with host Rachel Campos-Duffy, "but there has been a spiritual decimation that has come along that, a crisis in masculinity because we shipped jobs that gave men who work with their hands for a living and rely on brawn and physicality off to other countries to build up their middle class."

"And then we imported millions and millions of illegals to work in construction, to work in, yes, manufacturing what's left here, to work in landscaping, to work in janitorial services, to work in jobs that used to give men access to the American dream," she continued. "So Donald Trump is saying no more to this and to the crisis in masculinity, which is of course why young men feel so attracted to what he's offering."

Campos-Duffy agreed: "And when young men are not doing well, it's not good for young women either."
When they aren’t about AI and robots and technical ed for high school students. Who will obviously do better with the women when they know how to work on robots and not care about money.

Speaking as a man who’s worked construction labor and janitorial services (and fast food): none of those are gateways to masculinity or the American dream. I wasn’t stuck in those jobs. A lot of the American males I worked with, were. And I remember when world trade was supposed to lift those workers out of stoop labor. Now they’re being told, “Go back to stoop labor, it’s good for your soul”?

Something seriously wrong with this picture.
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Who Do You Think You’re Foolin’?

If domestic automated factories made everything cheaper than overseas factories staffed by human workers, companies would have set them up by now.  Wait, the workers are going to be the robots? Then who do the high school kids train to work in, in high school?
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Everybody’s Turning “Trans” Except Tuberville

What a scary little made up world he lives in.

Pretty soon we’ll all be trans, and Tommy will be all alone.
Even the stock market is trans! Soon only Tuberville and Trump will escape alive to tell thee!
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Balancing The Books

We had to lose that $6 trillion in order to…get it back again? AI didn’t do it. Trump did it. He announced a week before that he was going to put tariffs on the whole world. He even put them on a joint U.S./U.K. military base. So the U.K. couldn’t…? I can’t even….
Lemme get this straight...

Howard Lutnick says that they put tariffs on the "Penguin Islands" (which isn't even a country) because Trump is worried about countries circumventing his tariffs by going through other countries.

But he didn't place any symbolic tariffs on Russia and only levied the minimal baseline 10% tariffs on countries like Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Armenia, and Georgia that Russia uses to circumvent sanctions.

Got it.
Lutnick is channeling Trump. Trump’s genius is far beyond mortal understanding. Ummm... not lately.
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Fuck With The Money And Even The Press Notices

Even the penguins know better.
Lutnick: it’s automated factories.. The key is who is going to build and operate the factories

Brennan: You said robots
Robots will build and operate the factories. High school kids will maintain the robots. Penguins will still be smarter than Lutnick.
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😖

So, the President made that call? Volume? Now the stock market is a discount store? 
BESSENT: Most Americans who have put away for years in their savings accounts don't look at the day to day fluctuations of what's happening
Rivaled only by: So Trump is going to lift the tariffs?
The policies cannot fail, they can only be failed. As long as the Administration speaks with one voice, we can be sure they know what they’re doing.

And Trump is still on the golf course.  ⛳️
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The Penguins Refuse To Yield

While Trump is on the golf course?

Trump said we’d already gotten $5 trillion. Where is that?

Does this mean the tariffs ARE subject to being lifted before they even start? Does this mean Trump’s “policy” is all snake oil? Is he going to declare victory and abandon his outrageous claims? Or is he going to play golf while the nation’s economy burns?

Are deals being made? Or are the calls just variations on “WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK??!!???” It wasn’t that long ago Trump claimed Mexico had caved to his demands because he’s such an awesome negotiator; and then the President of Mexico said: “No, that didn’t happen at all.”

So this Administration has zero credibility. Which is really not good for the economy. 
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Saturday, April 05, 2025

Takes That Will Not Age Well

One thing Americans are known for is their patience with bad economic times directly caused by a President. I mean, we love a guy who screws our 401k’s, our Medicare, our Social Security, and our entire government, all at once!

And Elmo only wants to protect the white people:
Who would a knowed?

In tangentially related news:
So close; so unwilling to see.

And no, I can’t give up the massive protests today:
“Concerns varied by location. In Ketchum, Idaho … one sign showed Smokey Bear and read, ‘Only you can prevent forest fires. Seriously. We’ve been defunded. It’s just you now.’”
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Do NOT Underestimate The Penguins 🐧

Where do they get these ideas? From the guy who offered $2 million to Wisconsin voters?
And who paid for all these signs?

Or this WSJ front page?
And do NOT underestimate the penguins:
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More Signs Of The Times

"What’s that penguin doing on the television set?”
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Republicans As Moral Scolds

But we will barter them for political power. Eyes on the prize. American secular morality is rooted in self-sufficiency.  I’m waiting for the argument that we really don’t need that many clothes (objectively true: we are awash in clothes and even more so in castoff clothing), so we should move clothing manufacturing to America and consumers should just pay for it. And then when most of them can’t, they should just learn to wear rags.  “Workforce.” One that will work for a pittance once we repeal the labor and minimum wage laws.  Poverty frees you from earthly temptations anyway.
See? It’s coming. Right after they tell us money doesn’t really matter. Because secular morality is largely just a system of control. It isn’t concerned with Tolstoy’s question (the true question of morality): “How should we then live?” American secular morality asks the question: “Who’s in charge?”
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If The “T” Fits

Funny how the original tweet fits Tesla to a “T.”
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The People Are Revolting

And the King is a fink!*

*Yes, it’s a test. How old are you? 👴🏻
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Screams On The Intertoobs Are The Worst

Uh...
Coming back to this. It's not just the biggest tax hike in modern history. It was carried out unilaterally by the President (with no approval by Congress), & it's blatantly illegal.

This needs to be a central part of Democratic messaging. It's King George III shit. Democrats need to act like it.
Yeah, I thought that’s where this was going:
Again, Trump’s deliberate attempt to damage the US economy is also blatantly illegal. If only the Framers had thought of a mechanism for addressing such conduct….
Impeachment? Are you joking? When has that ever worked?

JMM (he is the root of this conversation) was on sounder ground with his suggestion Congress take away the power to impose tariffs. There is a normally pro-Trump group suing to stop the tariffs on the grounds Trump isn’t actually authorized to impose them under the statute he’s using. Which is a legal argument I’m very interested in.

Congress? I don’t even expect Congress to cancel Trump’s tariffs anytime soon. I sooner expect Trump to announce $20 trillion in investments/capitulations flooding America by Monday, and declare victory. 

I think the market reaction has him scared shitless. He needs validation, and he needs it yesterday. If the world won’t give it to him, he’ll give it to himself. He’s really not a fighter. Absent large-scale approval, he’s going to make something up and run away.

Congress? Congress has left the building until 2027. Trump is going to spend a lot of time playing golf. Elmo is going to stay and protect his government contracts.
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🍒 🥧

 JMM brings the East Coast perspective:

It's critical for people to be active, getting organized at the state level not just in conventional political ways but also to operate within and buttress their state govts for Trump's coming onslaught
Welcome to Texas:* The Lege is in session and likely to pass public funding for private schools. The same disastrous program tried at the end of the last century.  But that’s okay: history is insulting to white people, so we don’t teach that anymore.

*No, Abbott probably can’t do that. Yes, there will likely be a lawsuit. No, it probably won’t be resolved before November, 2026. Yes, Houston doesn’t do its elections “reliably” because it elects Democrats. Yes, this is as American as cherry pie.
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🐧

Trump:
China has been hit much harder than the USA, not even close. They, and many other nations, have treated us unsustainably badly. We have been the dumb and helpless 'whipping post,' but not any longer.

We are bringing back jobs and businesses like never before. Already, more than FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS OF INVESTMENT, and rising fast! THIS IS AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION, AND WE WILL WIN.
New York Times Pitchbot:
Tariffs will be lifted on penguins who agree to be completely white.

by Stephen Miller
Also, too , as well:
Tariffs will be lifted on penguins who surrender their eggs to the US market.

by Howard Lutnick
I’m disappointed no one is asking the White House about the tariffs on penguins. Really undermines credibility on the “$5 trillion,” (which has no credibility anyway), or just anything the White House has said since Wednesday (but I repeat myself). 

 Meanwhile:
Talked to a business friend deeply involved in CEO world, knows Trump and Scott Bessent. Calls Trump “a drunk driver taking the economy off the cliff into a needless recession,’ says Bessent told him he agrees. Predicts “he’ll be the shortest tenured Sec of Treasury in history.”
Thanks for playing! Hope you get some lovely parting gifts!

And too bad we don’t have a Congress that can take the T-Bird away. 🎶
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Is This A Good Time To Try To Privatize Social Security Again? ⛳️

 Asking for a friend….

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Friday, April 04, 2025

🍻

Indeed, who would?
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“In Order To Save The Village, We Had To Destroy It”

 Trump isn’t wrecking the economy, he’s saving it because:  

—the world is ripping America off.

—trade deficits are actually taking coin out of our coffers (it’s really not clear if he thinks this is a subset of the world ripping us off, or a wholly separate way we’re being screwed. Probably both and a little bit of neither. We’d have to ask the spiders.).🕷️ 

—Biden did it. Trump is just saving us from Biden’s deadly economy.

—Powell did it by not lowering interest rates.

—Wall Street did it by misunderstanding what Trump is doing.

—the world did it by misunderstanding what Trump is doing.

Whatever the explanation, the end is always the same. Trump is not responsible for what Trump does, unless he succeeds. Trump cannot fail, he can only be failed. And when he fails, it is never, ever his fault.

Some observers (per “Washington Week”) think the state of the market is already making Trump reconsider.  That sounds right. Like all bullies, he’s good at talking tough, and terrible at taking responsibility. So he’ll try to end it, because he can’t stand it. 

It’s as inevitable as sunrise. Who doesn’t think Trump will declare victory and ignore the countries saying that wasn’t the agreement? He certainly won’t let the tariffs run until Christmas. 

He can’t take that much responsibility.
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The Mad King Is Proud Of It

 Turns out it was “C)”.

I am assured Trump posted this himself .

I am also convinced Trump put Vance on the ticket as insurance no one would impeach him or execute the 25th, because that would only make things worse.

Wait, it’s okay. The original post was arguing this is Trump’s genius move to get the Fed to lower interest rates.  

So, let’s recap: Trump is imposing tariffs on the world (including two volcanic islands inhabited by penguins, and Norway and, separately and at a lower rate, a Norwegian peninsula), where he personally set the rates on each country (or uninhabited island) based on his complete misunderstanding of what a trade deficit is, to:

A) end the U.S. subsidies to the world (because that’s what he thinks trade deficits are); 

B) force countries to negotiate on their trade deficit (how they do that depends entirely on the spiders in Trump’s head): 

C) the economy was shit and this is the only way to fix it; or

D) to crash the U.S. market and force Jerome Powell to lower interest rates. No idea why he thinks this one will solve all the country’s problems or even make up for the economic pain already being felt, but 

1) maybe the spiders in his head are bored and hungry and leaving; or

2) reality is relentlessly breaking in and the idea of “pain” is no longer an abstract and inchoate one; or, 

3) he’s lost the thread again, and it’s starting to scare him that the outside world may be real and not just an extension of his ego.

He has no fucking idea what he’s doing, or why.
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Corrections

So the point of the tariffs is?

A) negotiations on trade deficits the administration fundamentally misunderstands?

B) Bringing factories back to America to be operated by robots and AI?

C) Wrecking the U.S. economy because Trump is an idiot?

D) Letting Trump think he’s finally equal to Putin?

E) Yes.
I think he meant to put that in the present tense. ‘Cause nobody can be that delusional. Right? Well, maybe I’m wrong.😑  The factory will open in just a few months, and AI and robots will take care of everything.  And by then we can train high school kids to maintain the robots.  Those kids’ll work cheap.

BREAKING: Dow drops 2,200 points, S&P 500 loses 10% in 2 days after China retaliated with new tariffs on U.S. goods, sparking fears Trump has ignited a global trade war that will lead to a recession.
See? Nothing to worry about.
“A sharp rise in trade-war intensity sent Wall Street spiraling Friday, pushing the Nasdaq into a bear market denoting a 20% decline from its peak. … The marketwide toll from the two-day tariff rout surged to a record $6.4 trillion.”
Joe Biden ruined all of those.
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Chess? Is There A Board? Is it A Game?

 Established: Trump is a complete idiot.

Jonathan Chait: "Asked by reporters whether he planned to negotiate the tariff rates, the president said, 'The tariffs give us great power to negotiate. They always have.'"

But negotiations mean tariffs are subject to change. Can’t invest in factories and workers if tariffs aren’t going to block access to cheaper labor in foreign markets basically in perpetuity. So:

Trump on Truth Social, "TO THE MANY INVESTORS COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES AND INVESTING MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF MONEY, MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE.” See? , says Trump. I understand the concept of “perpetuity.”

Chait: "Once you’ve said you might negotiate the tariffs, nobody is going to believe you when you change your mind and say you’ll never negotiate."

Two hours later, Trump announced a negotiated agreement with Vietnam.

Until I don’t.
Chait concluded that Trump's original plan, even if executed perfectly, was "not a good one by any means." But that plan is now "botched" and the future of American trade remains uncertain.
Trump is an empty bag of wind with a head full of spiders. He is no more capable of rational thought than a drug addicted spider monkey, and no more strategic than a two year old who has not yet figured out the cause and effect of tantrums. The fact that anyone still thinks he must be capable at something is just proof you can fool enough people enough of the time to get away with being a complete moron in any job you can get someone to give you.

He also proves the Presidential election can be won just by showing up.  Well, and lying continuously. Having any grasp of reality at all is not a condition of success. Turns out the voters will assume one for you,  If you win, they will insist you have one, all evidence to the contrary.

“Humankind cannot bear very much reality.”

QED.
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Can We Declare Charlie Kirk A…

..."criminal, foreign illegal, or gang member”?  Seems to be all it takes.

Check him for tattoos! Reinstate the “one-drop” rule and check his background! For all we know he’s an anchor baby!

😈
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“ALL IS WELL!”

The GOP senators are concerned. The market has lost 8% of its value in just two days, but hey! GOP senators are concerned about it! And they’ll let you know if they get more concerned!😦 

As Sen. Van Drew said: “This is just the beginning.” As Laurie Anderson said: “You already paid for this!”
And Ahab continues his pursuit of the white whale…
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“HANK TOUGH”*

 


Yesterday the market wasn’t low enough. It’s gotta get worse before it gets disastrous.

*We finally know the name of the guy always coming to Trump with tears in his eyes.
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According To Howard Lutnick…

...AI’s going to replace all those jobs.

Right after it replaces all the English teachers.

Elmo needs that to happen since he can’t sell cars anymore.  And since we can’t allow people to learn the “liberal arts.” For, well, obvious reasons.
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Thursday, April 03, 2025

When A Cat Is Smarter Than The Secretary of Commerce*

Lagniappe:

*Yeah, I know, insulting to the cat. I mean, my iPhone is smarter than the Secretary of Commerce.
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S.H.I.T.

Meanwhile, in Presidenting: Hell, he worked hard getting ready to tank the markets yesterday. He compared it to surgery. And he had to wait ‘til the markets closed down shit would hit the fan today while he wasn’t there to get spattered. He deserves to start the weekend on Thursday, right?
The DOW today looks like a coyote ate and then vomited it off a cliff. These are not economic indicators. But they indicate the”money people” think business is going to be bad, so get out ahead of it. Maybe they’re on to something.
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AI Is Magic 🪄

And will solve all our problems and allow us to send all the brown people away.
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I Dunno….

 Having read just Martin Chuzzlewit and considered the isolationism only overcome by Pearl Harbor, I think jingoism, ignorance of the world, and rank stupidity are as American as greed, xenophobia, and racism.

What Dickens saw in 19th century America is what I’ve seen in 20th and 21st century America. What I’ve learned of the intractability of culture (think of it as an almost immovable object akin to genetics and family traditions combined) convinces me the relatively international nature of American governance (“international” meaning Europe and the concerns of European nations; Vietnam, hem hem. And don’t make me stop this car and explain to you the French connection there!) after WWII until Trump was always the exception (aberration), that proved the rule.

The rubber band snapped back, to put it bluntly. What is Stephen Miller after, if not to purge the country of all the people not here (as in, not acknowledged), in the 1950’s? What a lot of white men are still taught to want, long after the Civil Rights movement is an historical monument and Obama’s election proved we aren’t racist anymore anywhere in America.  Trying to return to a status quo we shouldn’t want at all, IOW.

I heard a fired government employee interviewed today’s who said she was told the point was to eliminate any sign or suggestion of DEI and accessibility. As I said, Trump’s been told the ramps in the White House are historic (built for FDR), because if he knew they were required by the ADA, he’d want to tear them out. Civil rights are only for able-bodied white men who like Trump. They are the only people who deserve them. The way the Founding Fathers meant. Really.

But lots of people like to think that way, about their friends. At least enough people to think Trump is worth…something.

I don’t think he’s worth the paper these thoughts are printed on.  I mean, as a public servant; or anything other than another old rich man, for whom I have no real responsibility or concern. I don’t wish him ill. I just don’t wish him to be POTUS. 

Which is about all I can really do to oppose him, especially considering I’m highly unlikely to see my representatives in Congress being Democrats in, we, my lifetime.

Dese are de conditions dat prevail.

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He Means $5 Million Paid To Him

A reminder he put tariffs on two volcanic islands and a joint U.S./U.K. military base. He’s waiting for all three to call to negotiate. Saying it does not make it so: Operators are standing by. This is a free call. And his presentation of the basis for the tariffs was aptly described as:
"It’s hard to state just how nonsensical that actually is," he wrote. "You might as well divide the numbers of apples in your kitchen by the number of bagels and use it to calculate your mortgage rate. To criticise it on political or economic grounds is too generous. It operates below the level of rational thought."
I mean: Mr. “I will end the Russia/Ukraine war in a day,” who told Zelensky he had “no cards,” hasn’t even persuaded Putin to accept a 24-hour ceasefire. Trump has always operated below the level of rational thought. If he ever rose to the level of rational thought his brain would be starved of oxygen, and it would kill him. Same metaphor, earlier that same day. The man has spiders where his brain should be. They have control of his arms and legs and mouth, and they are having a dandy time. What does The Donald care?
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The Metaphor…

... is 19th century pre-modern medicine, when the patient (in 19th century literature, anyway) always got worse until “the fever broke,” and then they were going to get better.

Pretty much the way economies were treated too, until, at a guess, the working of Adam Smith.

So, yeah: he’s delusional and full of shit, and he can’t get past the 19th century, because he wants to live unironically in the NYC of Edith Wharton, and worry only about his place in that society, a society in which the poor and the non-white were neither seen nor heard.
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And His Eponymous Company Was Nailed For Massive And Pervasive Fraud

So, let him run country like a business. It’s going well. Seeing? Nothing to worry about….
Howard is the obtuse simpleton that Wall Street folks told me he was
What was your first clue?
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“This might be the single stupidest thing any of us will ever see,"

 The best commentary on what Trump did yesterday; and, of course, it’s British. Also, of course, it’s behind a paywall, so this is as much as I’ve got. 

“This might be the single stupidest thing any of us will ever see," Dunt argued. "It is stupid in every way: presentationally, intellectually, politically, methodologically, morally and of course economically. The word stupid doesn’t really suffice for the full level of idiocy we’ve now reached."

Dunt found himself particularly appalled by the chart that Trump showed that contained wildly inflated figures about the tariffs foreign nations slap on American products.

"It looked like something out of US daytime television – those garish cheaply produced shows where you can win a cash prize if you spin a wheel," he remarked. "You half expected a showgirl to appear behind the American flags, draped over a tariff quota rate. That’s what he is really: a cheap knock-off daytime TV presenter."

As if that weren't bad enough, Dunt continued, "The numbers on the chart were pure gibberish."

In fact, the numbers on the chart were so far from reality that Dunt struggled to come up with the words to adequately describe them.

"It’s hard to state just how nonsensical that actually is," he wrote. "You might as well divide the numbers of apples in your kitchen by the number of bagels and use it to calculate your mortgage rate. To criticise it on political or economic grounds is too generous. It operates below the level of rational thought."
And Congress is just hoping if they hide long enough, this will all go away.  
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R.U.R 🤖

Seeing a lot of people hammer Lutnick for his comments on American v European beef. 🥩 (You could look it up.)

Nobody seems to care about this one, though. Which is kind of revealing, in a disturbing way.
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Close, But Not A Cigar

Sen. Murphy’s analysis is sound: Trump wants control of lawyers, universities, government agencies, and businesses. He gains the latter through tariffs. Consider the position of Apple, whose iPhone is set to cost 50% more because it’s made in China.  What choice do they have but to appease Trump and seek a waiver, if only because shareholders will demand it?

But the solution, as the Senator alludes, lies in Congress. His argument that this is why the Constitution puts the economic power in the Congress is correct. Why Congress gave tariff authority to the President goes unaddressed. And the only solution now is…wait for the mud-terms. 

It’s not like we can recall all the idiots in the House who made Johnson the Speaker (he announced yesterday the Senate resolution Murphy alludes to is DOA in the House). GOP representatives are hiding from town halls, and that was before yesterday afternoon. So public opinion turning against Congress probably won’t have any impact sooner than November, 2026 does. 

Congress can undo this. Congress won’t. Not until 2027, at the earliest. That’s the only silver lining in this cloud. 

I mean, after all:
There is no general “economic emergency” that provides the statutory justification for global tariffs; if anything can be justified on national security grounds than everything can be justified on national security grounds; and if everything can be justified on national security grounds: Danger.

Trump’s authoritarian rule is not permanent. It can be dismantled in his term. But holy fuck, the cost….
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Wednesday, April 02, 2025

Newt’s An Historian, You Know

He also knows a lot about losing power. But Susan Collins never said Newt had learned his lesson. I hesitate to say the campaign ads write themselves, but if Newt’s for it, it’s a certain loser.
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😑

 


If you liked inflation under Biden, wait ‘til you get a load of Trump.

And the GOP is with him all the way!

Susan Collins trying to have it both ways here. But critical point, EVERY House GOP but one voted in the "CR" to further tie their own hands to prevent themselves from getting in Trump's way when he started Tariffgeddon
Dems gotta do more about this than Cory Booker’s filibuster. OTOH, they might just have to stay out of the way. (“Global governments”?) Except Americans found out during Covid they didn’t want to do shit jobs for shit pay (and wages in Taiwan and Korea were much cheaper). Houston hasn’t had reliable garbage service since Covid. I don’t know what those former workers are doing, but they aren’t driving garbage trucks, and nobody else is picking up the slack.

And now, your moment of clarity:
Just figured out where these fake tariff rates come from. They didn't actually calculate tariff rates + non-tariff barriers, as they say they did. Instead, for every country, they just took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country's exports to us.

So we have a $17.9 billion trade deficit with Indonesia. Its exports to us are $28 billion. $17.9/$28 = 64%, which Trump claims is the tariff rate Indonesia charges us. What extraordinary nonsense this is.
Probably true. Jeebus, even “Idiocracy” wasn’t this bad. Although I’d pay good money to see Bessent on camera trying to explain it away. Or maybe just get him to explain how we’re “subsidizing Canada” to the tune of $300 billion a year.

UPDATE: it always gets worse, and truth is always harsher than fiction:
Comparing this to “Idiocracy” is an insult to the premise of that movie. This is in some uncharted realm beyond stupidity.

Oh, and, what the hell….  One of the places facing tariffs is a joint U.S./U.K. military base. No idea how the Council of Economic Advisers calculated that tariff.

Just think: you can tell your children when Trump made that rocket blow up like it was one of Elmo’s. 😵‍💫 (That cover is from 5 months ago.)
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