Thursday, April 03, 2025

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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History On Repeat Really Sucks

 Trump, historian:

Trump continued, "It took years and years to get out of that depression, far longer than even FDR — had that office right over there for a long period of time. The ramp system, it's rather intricate, was built because of him. And every time you walk up, you think of him. And he did a great job in many ways — but it lasted long beyond his terms, as you know. But it's not too late any longer, and we're going to start being smart, and we're going to start being very wealthy again."
The White House was gutted and rebuilt between 1948 and 1951.
I’ve seen movie sets (in movies of the period) showing FDR’s White House. It looks nothing like the interior of the modern White House.

I know: nerdy. But Trump is just a special kind of stupid. (My uninformed guess is the ramps are for ADA compliance. But they told Trump it was FDR, or he’d have them torn out.)

Meanwhile, tariffs!
It’s a Norwegian peninsula. So he effectively put lower tariffs on Baja California than on Mexico (actually he probably did that, too). Probably because he wants hamburger manufacture to return to America. Shhh!! 🤫 Nobody tell him!  Called it!!! Damned kids gotta be good for something, and keeping rich people’s robots working is good enough for ‘em! Very hard to say just what will happen. (But didn’t Trump just say it’s a tax we don’t have to pay? Sounded real simple then.)

Pre-industrial America when the “global economy” was slavery and then cotton (relying on slave labor) is maybe a NOT the go-to you’re looking for. So, we can retaliate (Trump), but they should know better? Where we are is imposing tariffs on uninhabited islands and islands of 20,000 population, and a 5% lower tariff in a Norwegian peninsula than on the country of Norway.  Which is like Norway imposing tariffs on America, but a lower tariff on Florida. In other words, we’re at the mercy of a bump brain who makes George III and Mad Ludwig of Bavaria look like King David and Solomon.

As Congress that thinks it’s just fine the national house is on fire.🔥 
And history on repeat really sucks. 
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Ladies And Gentlemen, The President of the United States

Not even close. The ballpark is 100 miles in the wrong direction. His credibility is in that ballpark, too. Tariffs are going to cure bird flu and bring the dead chickens back to life and flood the market with eggs in time for the celebration of Our Lord’s resurrection? There. That’s what it’s all about. See?
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Well, I Guess I Didn’t Miss It

Now if the Senate just does their job….

(Yes, there was more. But I’m tired of listening to Trump prate like an empty-headed fool in love with the sound of his own self-importance. I just want Congress to do its fucking job before Trump wrecks the economy for a generation.)

(Breaking my own rule:
As the late Gene Hackman put it (as Lex Luthor) in the first “Superman” movie: "It's amazing that brain can generate enough power to keep those legs moving.") So this is okay then? And Elon can go home and DOGE can put everything back where they found it and RFK, Jr. can yell “APRIL FOOL’S!” because this is how you fix the deficit? With moonbeams and fantasies?
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Liberation!

Is Stephen Miller going to deport to El Salvador if they come, because they are brown and terrorists?

P. S., I’ve been busy. Are we liberated yet?
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“It’s Money That Matters”

 


Except when it isn’t.
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Says The Guy Who Would Take A Chainsaw To The Chessboard

♟️ 
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“Extended Service”?

There are 46,000 Cybertrucks on the road, all of which are subject to recall because of bad glue…. And yet some are undergoing “extended service”? 

I’ve owned new cars and used cars, and the last time I had one in for “extended service,” the car in question was over a decade old.  I do remember when Detroit cars were basically shit because Detroit had no competition, and Americans bought whatever was available. Then Japanese cars came in that were reliable, and it took Detroit about a decade to catch up (those pre-Japanese car days are what Trump jingoistically longs to return to). But why are Elmo’s cars built like 1970’s era Detroit shit?

Maybe because his big rocket is a 1950’s era bottle rocket that explodes right after launch?
I know the Nazi thing is getting all the attention, but Tesla’s are basically computers on wheels. And as I understand it, they haven’t changed their battery technology, and the “self-driving” car that doesn’t (still) exist is based on cameras when everyone else as gone to LiDAR (my Volvo has a lane keeping feature meant to keep you from drifting. It works from a camera that sees the lane dividers. I bough it during Covid.).

Not cutting edge, IOW. In fact, it seems like Tesla is IBM when everyone else is buying the new MacIntosh.

If you’re old enough to remember IBM, and what Steve Jobs did to them…
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And This Is A Surprise…

The New York City-based firms have thus far conducted themselves cravenly and disgracefully.
...because?
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I Was Assured Trump Would Defy All Court Orders And Laws

So...? 🤷🏻‍♂️ 

(A full bill passed by both houses with a veto-proof margin, from news reports, is not necessary. The statute giving Trump “national emergency” power to impose tariffs also allows the Senate to rescind those tariffs on a simple majority vote for a resolution. In the Senate, just to underline the simplicity. Nothing more. Reports are some GOP senators don’t really want to vote for this; but they don’t really want to not vote for it. 😈)
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Tuesday, April 01, 2025

If, On The Other Hand….

 …you want to go through the looking glass:

Peter Thiel ally Curtis Yarvin recently accused the Trump administration of failing to understand that “regime change”, requires that “Every existing institution of science” be “fully cremated” & replaced w/ a “new scientific establishment.” Soon after, RFK Jr guts HHS & announces a new division 1/
That post is part of a 21 post thread laying out an argument that Thiel is behind all this:
The Rockbridge Transition Project will create a ‘government-in-waiting’ with the people & plans to staff the next Republican Administration. The goal is to be ready to govern effectively…from day one.“—Rockbridge Network 2021 Budget (Thiel & Mercer reportedly back Rockbridge.) 1/ #Project2025
Wheels within wheels, IOW. Gabbard and Vance are connected to Thiel, after all.

This is all starting to sound like the premise of a bad comic book/movie plot to take over the world. The problem is, reality is always so much more complicated than fiction; or imagination.

Damage will be done. Irreparable damage is much harder. Destroying the scientific community of HHS is not nearly the same thing as replacing it with a “new scientific establishment.” Whatever the hell that is. 

One thing about science is that, like math, it’s truly catholic, that is, universal. There really aren’t Protestant and Roman and Orthodox and Coptic versions. Not in the sense that you can set up a Lutheran scientific regime, and a Reformed one, and then fragment those into smaller and smaller pieces. Unless you want to make science in the near future as virtually useless as Christianity is today (solely as a basis of authority in society). Which, come to think of it, may be the point, after all. 🤨
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Copium, Wisconsin Edition

The real story of these three elections is that money doesn’t determine outcomes. No doubt it matters, but it isn’t determinative.

And Elmo is still no kingmaker. Cherry on the sundae.

Although some people will always insist otherwise, especially when they can invoke fantasy:
It’s a fair cop. King-making is HARD! Game over, man! Game over! That’s going to be the gift that keeps on giving. I mean, if they don’t lose, they can’t complain about it.

😈
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“There Is No Habitation For A Man To Live There…”

 “…and the king of that country is the fierce Greenland bear “

Three people with knowledge of the matter told The Washington Post that the White House took steps in recent weeks to attempt to determine the cost of Greenland becoming a U.S. territory. That includes how much the government would have to spend to provide services for its roughly 58,000 residents and how much it would cost to maintain should it be acquired, according to the report.

Additionally, the Trump administration is looking into any potential revenue that could be earned from the massive island's natural resources.

Under consideration is having the U.S. try to offer Greenlandic people a better deal than Denmark, which subsidizes services at about $600 million a year, according to the report.

“This is a lot higher than that,” one official familiar with the plans told the Post. “The point is, ‘We’ll pay you more than Denmark does.’”
Set aside Congressional approval of this nonsense (do we really need a larger, colder Puerto Rico? I mean, I assume we’re never giving Greenland two senators and a representative), I thought we were trying to cut spending? Is that only for Americans? Greenlanders we can give more too (and yes, Puerto Rico has entered the chat).💬 Let’s sell that one when Elon’s statutory 130 days has expired. Should make people not miss him, anyway.

And are we going to socialize the natural resources of Greenland to balance the federal costs? Or do we just make it the new banana republic and get a taste for Uncle Sam in taxes?

I really don’t think these guys are very bright at all.

“And there’ll be no temptation to tarry long there/With our ship bumpers full, we will homeward repair.” (“Farewell to Tarwaithe,” sung by Judy Collins) I think of that song, and consider that the people behind Project 2025 want to return America to the 1950’s, with a 19th century government. They won’t get what they want, but they’ll do a lot of damage trying.

But really, they aren’t very bright; at all.
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Waste, Fraud and Abuse

The same judicial trickery that enforced your offer to buy Twitter? Or the judicial trickery that blocked Tesler from paying you an unseemly bonus for riding the wave of a meme stock as you drive your public company into the ground? Sounds like you want some judicial trickery for yourself. That, too. And you know this takes more than tweets and interviews to make it happen, right?

No, you probably don’t. But the same government that’s providing you with contracts (even as Tesler contracts)*, is the government of laws being applied and upheld by “judicial trickery.”

Funny how it always works out that way. Bitter with the sweet, little boy.


*Yes, I saw what I did there.
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But At Least The Price Of Eggs?

Thousands of the best experts at FDA, NIH, and all across HHS are being terminated right now.

These are the people who make sure the medications you and your children take are safe.

These are the people who perform and oversee research on cancer, infant health, and so so so much more.

These are the people who make sure new devices that physicians and patients use are effective.

These are the people who keep workers safe on the job and help prevent devastating injuries for workers all around the country.

These are the people who track what drugs and medications are experiencing shortages so we can adapt.

These are the people who help tackle HIV and other infectious diseases, asthma, lead poisoning, and everything else that makes many Americans sick.

And now, thousands of them are gone.

There is no way this makes Americans healthier.

We will regret this.
One step forward, five steps back.
STAT News reports that about twenty-five percent of the entire HHS workforce is expected to be eliminated:

“As of last week, it was estimated that the FDA would take the biggest cut, losing roughly 3,500 employees, or about 19% its workforce, followed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was expected to lose … about 18% of its staff. The National Institutes of Health was projected to lose about 1,200 employees, or about 6% of its workers.”

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who served as FDA Commissioner during President Donald Trump’s first administration, did not appear to directly address the firings, but chose the day they are happening to warn about the destruction of the ecosystem that works to create new drugs, which includes HHS agencies like the FDA and the NIH.

“Twenty-five years ago, it was common to hear complaints about a ‘drug lag’—the perception that Europeans routinely enjoyed medical advances years before their American counterparts. Through a generation of congressional actions, investments in expertise and hiring, and careful policymaking, we built the FDA into the most efficient, forward-leaning drug regulatory agency in the world—and established the U.S. as the global center of biopharmaceutical innovation. Today, the cumulative barrage on that drug-discovery enterprise, threatens to swiftly bring back those frustrating delays for American consumers, particularly affecting rare diseases and areas of significant unmet medical need.”
We will learn from this that not everything is about the price of eggs in presidential elections, right?

🙄
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“401K People”?

 Do they live in flyover country?

Harris Faulkner on how Trump should talk to "401k people" worried about tariffs hurting them: "Look, when this nation used to go to war, people in this country would support the war effort with their materials at home and making things for weaponry. We have to do 100% buy in over this bumpy period."
And we have to do this because the non-401K people need a really big tax cut? Is this the way to the tax cut? That 401K people won’t get?
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Why Nobody Calls Professors At Ivy League Schools “Coach”

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Go And Please The World….

Lots of people celebrating Cory Booker's filibuster -- for good reason! He's presenting issues that are being ignored.

But note that Booker (very characteristically) oozes Senatorial comity, repeatedly talking about what good friends he is with far right Senators.

Note, I'm not complaining he's doing that--Booker will be Booker.

I'm noting that it doesn't look like what the people celebrating the filibuster say they want.
Booker really should take a cane to the Republicans in the Senate. Probably Fetterman, too.

It would please a handful of people on the intertoobs and isn’t that what really matters?
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Morning Comes To Consciousness…

 Some House Republicans think getting Elmo out if the picture will save them in the midterms.

Yeah, I don’t think so:

Labor economist Kathryn Anne Edwards believes that President Donald Trump is poised to make history with his global trade wars, but not the kind of history he will want to be remembered for.

Writing in Bloomberg, Edwards argued that the United States economy is "plodding toward a recession" and that "this will arguably be the only recession directly caused by White House policy."

While many recessions have a complex series of causes, Edwards believes that the one threatened now will be caused solely by the chaos being set off by Trump's trade wars.

"Tariffs... both the ones levied by the administration and those put on the U.S. by its trading partners in retaliation, are paralyzing business activity and rattling consumers," she contended. "Wall Street firms are rapidly reducing their estimates for how much gross domestic product will expand. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s widely-followed index of the economy in real time has turned negative. The Conference Board and the University of Michigan both report steep declines in consumer confidence."
And it’s going to last a lot longer than Elmo’s tenure:
Greg Mankiw, an economics professor at Harvard University and a former Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush, said that the tariff proposal being floated by the president indicated a deep-seated ignorance of how economies actually operate.

"“Trump doesn’t seem to understand basic international economics," he told the Post. "A lot of the arguments he makes, Adam Smith was refuting two and a half centuries ago in ‘Wealth of Nations'... I have not seen a more wrongheaded policy come out of a White House in decades.”

And Mankiw wasn't the only economist who made dire projections about the impact of the Trump tariffs.

The Post writes that Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s, projects that "the economy would almost immediately tumble into a recession that would last for more than a year, sending the jobless rate above 7 percent" should Trump go through with his tariffs plans.

And economists at investment bank Goldman Sachs have warned that "the risk from April 2 tariffs is greater than many market participants have previously assumed," while also raising the chances of recession in the United States to 35 percent in the coming year.
Reports are Trump is preparing 20% tariffs across the board. Which will pretty much wipe out any concerns about Elon and DOGE. Or probably just add on to the concerns. Meanwhile, Karoline Leavitt puts on the armor of God every morning to face the army of evil the White House press corps.
Sure, well, before briefings, it's a little bit chaotic and overwhelming because there's so much news to consume, and so all morning long, my team and I are prepping," Leavitt said. "That team prayer before is just a moment to be silent and still and ask God for confidence and the ability to articulate my words, knowledge, prayer, protection, and it is a nice moment to reset."

"It's warfare out there," Brody opined. "You know, in Christian terms, people will call what's happening in our country today spiritual warfare. Do you see it in those terms, kind of good versus evil out there, in that context, how do you see that?"

"I certainly think, I certainly believe in spiritual warfare," Leavitt insisted. "And I think I saw it firsthand, especially throughout the campaign trail with President Trump, and I think there certainly were evil forces, and I think that the President was saved by the grace of God on July 13th in Butler, Pennsylvania, and he's in this moment for a reason."
Christianity actually teaches humility, not warrior ethics. I can think of two saints (Leavitt is too Protestant to even accept the notion) who are associated with battle, both French: Joan of Arc, and St. Louis. She was burned alive, a fate Leavitt surely doesn’t anticipate; and Louis died in dysentery in the 8th Crusade. Ironically, Louis is credited with introducing the legal concept of innocent until proven guilty, something Leavitt’s decidedly unchristian boss would like to eliminate, except for himself.

Somehow I think Leavitt imagines her Christian martyrdom as simply overcoming the suffering of the slings and arrows of outrageously evil questions by… the hand selected journalists allowed to approach her throne.

Tough job, but somebody has to do it, huh?
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