Tuesday, April 08, 2025

We’re Gonna Be So Rich We Won’t Know How To Spend All The Money!

He really doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing, does he? Maybe he thinks the market is a giant valve as big as this room…. 
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🎶”Shining Like A Red Rubber Ball”🎶

Well, Trump does lead the world in the manufacture of bullshit. The Centralia coal fire has entered the chat. Grandpa’s off his meds again. I’m a little surprised he doesn’t take credit for making the rain fall that ended the fires. But it’s actually scarier that he thinks this is what did it.

If it wasn’t for J.D. Vance, I’d want to see Trump 25thed in a heartbeat. He really shouldn’t be allowed anything sharper than a rubber ball.
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🎶This is the end, my friend, the end…🎶


 

Apologies. That’s probably hard to read, and besides, it’s written for lawyers (all professions are a conspiracy against the laity, yadda yadda yadda). Another “shadow docket” decision and, again, Sotomayor and KJB dissent on procedural grounds. The latter argues the application itself is faulty where the applicants for the stay have not demonstrated irreparable harm. The former would deny the stay; no further explanation is given.

Solid grounds, IMHLO, especially since this is yet another interim emergency appeal (meaning you need a stronger argument to get the relief sought). But the anecdotal truth (meaning observers of the court know it even if law professors can’t cite statistics to prove it) is, the courts generally yield to the interests of the government, especially as you climb the ladder of appeals.

The era of the Warren Court, IOW, which is the one so formative in the public memory/imagination, was the exception, not the rule. I learned as a lawyer that what I wanted the law to be, and what it would be, were two different things. Whether you like it or not, that’s the way it is. And the arguments of Thurgood Marshall and Ruth Bader Ginsburg wouldn’t get far with this Court.

Another emergency docket #SCOTUS win for Trump—albeit on incredibly narrow grounds in the OPM probationary firings case.

Majority holds that at least some of the groups who got the injunction here likely don’t have standing.

But this leaves other injunctions in place and says nothing re: merits.
This is a very narrow ruling and, IMHLO, standing is merely the toehold the Court uses to rule in favor of the application at all. My sympathies, as ever, are with KJB’s reasoning. I think the Court should have left this for regular order in an appeal from a final decision. The fact the Court is taking these applications at all shows more deference (or even bias) than any other party would be given.

I wouldn’t even call it a “win,” because the expectation this court will turn Trump back is expecting this court to act like the Warren Court. And that the Roberts Court will never do. The standing call is a poor one, especially at this stage of proceedings. But it’s hardly the end, or even the beginning of the end. It certainly doesn’t impact all the other cases on appeal or in the trial courts.

It coulda been worse. And, frankly, probably will be, soon enough.
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Internet Armchair Lawyers Are The Worst

 I don’t agree with (or even less relevant, approve) if the majority opinion in Trump v J.G.G. But any legal analysis of that opinion that doesn’t even mention the APA is not worth the paper it’s printed on.

Internet armchair lawyers are the worst.

Professor Vladeck puts the matter far more cogently:

And that leads me to my last point: This isn’t any old case; it’s the case in which the government has come the closest to outright defiance of a court order (something Chief Judge Boasberg is still in the middle of adjudicating). And it’s the case that led President Trump to call for the impeachment of a sitting federal judge for doing nothing other than rule against him (a statement that led to a surprisingly quick and aggressive rebuttal from Chief Justice Roberts). Not two weeks later, here’s Roberts providing the decisive vote to hold that, in fact, the case shouldn’t have been before that judge (or that court) in the first place, without even a hint that any of the government’s (profoundly disturbing) behavior in this case warrants any reproach. As Justice Sotomayor concludes her dissent, “The Government’s conduct in this litigation poses an extraordinary threat to the rule of law. That a majority of this Court now rewards the Government for its behavior with discretionary equitable relief is indefensible. We, as a Nation and a court of law, should be better than this.”

That the Court is not, in fact, “better than this” may come as little surprise to folks who have come to view everything this Court does with cynicism. For as harsh a critic of the Court as I’ve been, especially with respect to its behavior on emergency applications like these, it still surprises me. And it opens the door to the alarming possibility that the Court is not, in fact, ready to accept how profound a threat the Trump administration poses to the rule of law—not because the Court is upholding what the government is doing, but because a majority of the justices are willing to let the government win on procedural technicalities in contexts in which the real-world costs are increasingly severe. It’s not too late for the Court to reverse this pattern. But it’s getting late quickly.
Supreme Court opinions are lawyers talking to lawyers, because appellate opinions are decided on points of law (or should be). Trial court opinions are usually lawyers talking to lawyers and lay people, because those opinions have to find the facts and apply the law. Every legal ruling is a matter of how the facts and the legal reasoning lead to the conclusion. The conclusion is important; but the legal reasoning is just as important.

This case was decided on procedural issues, like the question of using the APA for injunctive relief, since that remedy is not available under the AEA. The APA is also how Boasberg was approaching certifying a class for the judicial efficiency of a class action suit. If you aren’t discussing those matters, but instead are arguing about what cited cases “actually” stand for, you aren’t just missing the point, you aren’t even in the debate hall. Cases cited in opinions ALWAYS rule on several different issues, and the one they are cited for may only be of minor importance in the original opinion. It’s just whinging that your preferred outcome, wasn’t the court’s outcome. The dissents here know better, and go after the argument with counter-arguments of their own.

The Administration wanted carte blanc to do as they pleased under the AEA. They didn’t get it. Professor Vladeck points out habeas proceedings will now have to be heard in the Southern District of Texas, with appeals going to the Fifth Circuit, the appellate court most likely to side with the government. But that’s also the circuit most overturned by the Supreme Court, lately. It’s hardly all sunshine and flowers. But neither is it all destruction and despair.

Congress still has the true whip hand over the Presidency. Whether we, the people, will give them the numbers and the backbone to use it, remains to be seen. But that is the true constitutional solution. There really isn’t another one. (Yes, that could even capture the unicorn of impeachment, but I really don’t think we can expect to replace that many Senators in one blow.)



rustypickup, in comments, identifies both the problem with the decision, and the problem pointed out in dissent: using the shadow docket (cases not fully developed in trial or in appeal; not briefed and argued to the Court; opinions based on reduction reasoning and quick conclusions), to do almost in secret what the Court should do on at least the appearance of hearing arguments and considering issues. The dissent said it: the Court threatens its own legitimacy with not just its rulings, but its actions.
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Monday, April 07, 2025

Being Very Afraid 😳

The au courant intertoobs nightmare is Trump directing the military to take Greenland by force. So, does this mean he’s going to just send troops to Gaza and set up military shop there?

Seems as likely as invading Greenland, but what do I know?
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Every Time You Think He Can’t Get Stupider

What could go wrong? Well, until the habeas petitions around the country get you on a new court docket for every individual detained. The trial court had provisionally certified a class, which would put them all in one court, on one docket. You’ve lost that, now. Enjoy. Same answer. All the detainees under Boasberg now are allowed habeas proceedings on new dockets, in the districts of confinement. In the immediate case, that’s Texas (Southern District, I assume, but I can’t be sure). The Court also required notice, after the date of their order, to give each detainee time to request habeas proceedings. I foresee litigation on how much time is “enough,” so I don’t think those detained are on the first plane to El Salvador. This is going to be in the courts for awhile yet.
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IMHO, Anyway

 Don’t criticize people as “dumb” by saying dumb things:

The administration is a perfect storm of dumb people who enjoy inflicting pain and are addicted to psychotic cruelty and quadrupling down. It ends in total ruin if you don't impeach him.
In the history of the country, no President has ever been removed from office. Nixon resigned, which just proves the rule. The way to end this Administration lies in the hands of Congress (not impeachment), and through the courts.

BTW, the 5 member majority did not hand the Administration a victory today (although Sotomayor thinks they did. And I think she’s right. But the two dissents are on procedural grounds. Not unimportant, but when non-lawyers think of “wins,” they mean substantive law.). The majority ruled the government must allow for habeas proceedings, instead of seeking injunctive relief (I told you it was procedural).  This will take the cases away from Boasberg, as habeas proceedings must be in the district where the defendant is confined (I’m just assuming that is not D.C. for each of them). I suppose that’s a “win” for Trump, but if that’s the hill you want to die on, you’re not doing any more good than MAGA.

The courts can do some of this (Trump wanted the AEA to give him absolute power to deport people; the Supremes didn’t give him that). The Congress has to do most of it. Trump hasn’t even dismissed, much less noticed, the protests over the weekend.  It is up to us to make Congress take notice, or to pay at the ballot box for not paying attention.

Please forget impeachment. It won’t work, and that which doesn’t kill the king, only makes him stronger. This is actually the clarity we need:
Donald Trump’s hefty new tariffs represent an unprecedented shock to the economy, and they are being accompanied by policies that run directly counter to the goal of promoting American economic dominance.
Because Trump is taking orders from Putin? Or because Trump is an idiot surrounded and supported by idiots? I’m pretty sure signs point to the latter. 

We should proceed accordingly. IMHO, anyway.
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End of the Game ♟️

 Endgame:

“Bessent’s view was, ‘The markets will keep melting unless you shift,’” one person familiar with the conversations told the outlet. “You’re not going to abandon the policy, but you have to talk about negotiating and what the endgame is.”
And so Trump did. His goal is an absolute balance of trade between the U.S. and all the countries of the world (well, except Russia. He’s fine with Russia).

A literal impossibility, but hey, nobody said it would be easy!

This is what happens when you leave the Peter Principle in control.
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In Other Words…

Trump was wrong in the ‘80’s, and hasn’t learned anything since.

So he’s still stuck deep in the past.  Thanks to the Senator for clearing that up.
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📉

Well, we can’t have that! The Dow quickly went back below its open. Seems the market was desperately seeking rationality:
This is the timeline of what happened that moved FOUR TRILLION DOLLARS on the market just now:

1) Kevin Hassett gives an unremarkable Fox interview at 8:24 a.m. ET

2) @atrupar clipped it, as he does, at 8:33 a.m. ET (and it gets not much notice)

3) @DeItaone "misinterprets" it at 10:13 a.m. and tweets the white house considering a 90 day pause

4) Market pops 7-10%

5) WH denies

6) @DeItaone claims the news is sourced to reuters and he deletes the original tweet
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Hammer Time

I would say Trump is acting with the authority of a stupid person who doesn’t understand complexity, and just wants to take a hammer to it.

The only question now is: how long will it take for Congress to decide it’s up to them to take the hammer away?

The outlook is not good….
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Benny Needs To Talk To Peter Navarro

(It’s almost entertaining watching Trump’s most sycophantic courtiers try to defend Dear Leader’s obvious incompetence. Fox Business News seems to be doing it by…ignoring business news.)
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We Are In The Hands Of Complete Morons

 Pete Navarro as the Voice of Sauron:

"Zero tariffs, that means nothing to us because it's the non-tariff cheating that matters!" he insisted. "They sell us $15 for every $1 we sell them. About $5 of that $15 is China trans shipping to Vietnam to evade their tariffs."

In reality, a country running a trade surplus with another country is not "cheating" that country. Rather, it is a reflection of the fact that the country with the trade deficit buys more overall goods from the country with the surplus than vice-versa.

Regardless, Navarro told CNBC that "any country that wants to come to talk to us, talk to us about lowering your non-tariff barriers."

Navarro then went on to cite examples of other nations' value-added taxes on goods as an example of stealth tariffs placed on American goods despite the fact that VATs apply to both foreign and domestically produced goods and thus do not penalize American products..
Meanwhile, Trump whistles past the graveyard.
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Echoing TC’s Comments

TC’s comments, and the echo: 
One man just wiped out $10 trillion in wealth, is destroying centuries-old legal protections, and seems determined to unravel humanity’s greatest public health achievement. In 3 months.

I don’t know how we get out of this. But if we do, one person can never have that kind of power again.
JMM:
This is a big deal. Spread the word. But it’s tiny compared to the totality of what’s happening at NIH. Cure Research for all cancers, Alzheimer’s, everything is being gutted. Intentionally. It’s all getting burned to the ground but the news isn’t getting out. The new cures won’t be there for you.
I can sort of understand world trade as Trump’s white  whale. It’s complicated, he’s stupid, and anything complicated a stupid person is wont to destroy. And as I type those words I realize that’s the explanation. Government is complicated, so he’s going to destroy it. Destroying medical research is not the goal, it’s just collateral damage. 

Trump is Godzilla rampaging through the buildings. As I recall, the original version was somewhat of a parable of how humanity created its own monster.
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Sunday, April 06, 2025

Their First Clue

CNBC
Investors were surprised first by the magnitude of certain rates applied to trading partners that appeared to be based on a formula without a valid rationale based on established economic theory. They were rattled further when China on Friday decided to retaliate first with a 34% tariff on all U.S. imports, instead of negotiating.
That was last week. Then Trump quit playing golf:
Investors did not receive the news over the weekend they were wishing for that the Trump administration was having successful negotiations with countries to lower the rates, or at the very least, was considering delaying the set of so-called reciprocal tariffs due to take effect April 9. The initial unilateral 10% tariff went into effect Saturday.

Instead the president and his key advisors played down the sell-off:

Trump said Sunday evening on the market sell-off: "I don't want anything to go down, but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something."

Trump added, "We have a trillion-dollar trade deficit with China, hundreds of billions of dollars a year we lose with China. And unless we solve that problem, I'm not going to make a deal."

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CBS News that the tariffs would not be postponed. "The tariffs are coming... They are definitely going to stay in place for days and weeks."

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent noted to NBC News that more than 50 countries have approached the administration for negotiations, but cautioned "they've been bad actors for a long time, and it's not the kind of thing you can negotiate away in days or weeks."
Dow futures are down 1600 points on Sunday evening. The Dow dropped over 2300 points on Friday. Monday is already saying: “Hold my beer.” 🍺 

I guess the bit tonight about “medicine” was not reassuringly rational. I’m also sure the nearly 3 million people in the streets will not speak with a louder voice than investors will to Congress in the coming days.

The only question is, how long will the powers that be let this madman think he’s in charge? Who will ask: “At long last, sir, have you no shame?”

I really don’t think he can defy reality with his bullshit for very long. This is much bigger than he realizes:
5:50 pm PST:

Japan’s banking sector in free fall.

Complete meltdown across all major financial institutions with 14-17% drops not seen since 2008 financial crisis.

I really don’t think he can handle it for very long.

The future knows; the rest of us have to live through it.
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Try Again, Discount Goebbels

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.
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Syntax Matters

No notes. "Business is a confidence game”? Pretty sure he meant “business requires confidence, i.e., trust. The one thing about business Trump is incapable of understanding. Ironically, also the fundamental thing government, through law, helps establish. Follow the laws, business thrives, trust is reliable and, when it isn’t, enforceable. Through government.

Trump understands none of this. That’s where the real problem lies.
Hmm...maybe crypto is not…trustworthy?

Speaking of which:
Um...okay. And how are we defining "strong"? Ok, he thinks he's strong. See? And that is what he told them. (The companies are coming because of Biden. No company would make such a major decision and be ready to act on it within 24 hours, as Trump suggests. The very idea is delusional.) He’s really not very good at math. And all he really knows is that “a trillion” sounds like a lot; and enough to be impressive.
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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 of 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 on, 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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