Supreme Court Rules That Trump May Invoke Alien Enemies Act to Deport Foreign Gang-Members and Criminals In Repudiation of Judge Boasberg's Endless String of Restraining Orders

The Court ruled that deportations under the Alien Enemies Act have, historically, "largely been precluded from judicial review," so the judges who keep claiming they have jurisdiction are wrong and asserting power they just don't have.

The court allows that there is some possible relief for a claimed false deportation, but that relief must come by way of a habeas corpus petition, not a TRO filed in a district court.

The Court specifically mentions venue. In a habeas filing, the court with jurisdiction is a court with jurisdiction over the physical part of the country that the person is actually being detained in. So someone detained in Texas must file a habeas petition with a Texas court.

They cannot just keeping filing TRO's in the packed-and-stacked leftwing DC courts.

That's a big deal. Most cases will heard by less partisan courts.

I'm still waiting for the Sudden Twitter Experts to tell me the difference between a TRO hearing and habeas corpus hearing. Some have noted that the Sudden Twitter Expertise in egg prices have exchanged that for a Sudden Twitter Expertise in tariffs. I'm sure that some will quickly cash that out for a Sudden Twitter Expertise in habeas petitions.

I think one big difference is that a habeas petition can't result in "emergency" relief before an actual hearing on the merits. In other words, relief can only be had once you've actually proven your case in a hearing. A judge can't just say "Well I think that when we have the hearing you'll probably win so here's your Emergency Temporary Relief in the meantime," which is the rule behind all of these emergency temporary restraining orders.

This certainly seems like this will sharply limit judicial activism on this front.

But I do await the Sudden Twitter Experts on Habeas Corpus Hearings for confirmation.

The decision was 5-4.

Guess who joined the leftists, again?

Posted by: Ace at 07:30 PM | Comments (235) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Get Ready for a Shock: The Whole 2024 "Brat Summer" Meme for Kamala Wasn't Organic At All, But an Organized PsyOp Financed by Leftwing Billionaires

I can all hear you shouting "No! That's impossible!" just like Luke Skywalker.

The abrupt withdrawal last year of President Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee, followed rapidly by his replacement with Vice President Kamala Harris, irked many voters left out by the process. Yet social media seemed to ooze with enthusiasm and Gen Z-friendly hipster appeal.

Influencers flooded the web with neon-matcha green pro-Harris videos synced to beats from singer Charli XCX's album "Brat" released last year. The poppy rave videos, gushed journalists, showed that Harris embodied the confidently independent "brat" vibe conveyed by the music. Social media pages bubbled with memes celebrating Harris as the voice of queer and black youth, in contrast with the Republican agenda of white supremacy. Digital creator Amelia Montooth, in one viral TikTok video, kissed a woman and tried searching for pornography, actions her sketch suggested would be banned if Harris lost the election.

Harris, a career politician favored by the Democratic Party's establishment, never quite fit the bill as an icon of activist movements. But the sudden influencer buzz seemed to transform the stodgy former prosecutor into an icon of the cultural zeitgeist.

As it turns out, the tidal wave of enthusiasm was not entirely genuine. Much of the content, including Montooth's videos, was quietly funded by an elusive group of Democratic billionaires and major donors in an arrangement designed to conceal the payments from voters.

RealClearInvestigations obtained internal documents and WhatsApp messages from Democratic strategists behind the influencer campaign. Way to Win, one of the major donor groups behind the effort, spent more than $9.1 million on social media influencers during the 2024 presidential election -- payments revealed here for the first time. The amount was touted in a document circulated after the election detailing the organization's accomplishments.

The effort supported over 550 content creators who published 6,644 posts across platforms, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, and X. Way to Win coached creators on phrases, issue areas, and key themes to "disseminate pro-Kamala content throughout the cycle," a post-election memo from the group noted.

...

Way to Win, in internal messages, touted its work with a stable of Democratic Party-affiliated influencers and activists, including Harry Sisson, Emily Amick, Kate Abu, and Dash Dobrofsky.

So everyone says Harry Sisson is a secretly paid-off shill and covert marketer. I've repeated it, but was always afraid that maybe this wasn't true and I was committing defamation.

So I'm glad to here that the King of Mish is, in fact, a paid-off shill who refuses to disclose he's being paid to covertly influence his followers.

The group also overtly cultivated "non-political creators" -- influencers typically known for travel vlogs, comedic skits, or cooking recipes -- and seeded them with "positive, specific pro-Kamala content" that was "integral in setting the tone on the Internet and driving additional organic digital support." The effort often took the form of talking points that were rapidly distributed to the in-network creators.

"Bro who is Tim Walz," said @AbeeTheArtist, one of the TikTok creators backed by Way to Win. "He's a football coach, that's hard," the influencer continued. "It's time for Republicans to drop out, it's not looking good for ya'll!"

...

Jaff also explained the process for developing talking points that could be inserted into organic-appearing messages and posts on social media. "We then convey that to the influencers who take that into their own words," continued Jaff.

...

Ilana Glazer, a comedian who starred in the Comedy Central show Broad City, received Way to Win funding for a series of election videos called "Microdosing Democracy," in which she half-heartedly endorsed Harris as she lighted a spliff of marijuana. Another TikTok and Instagram series backed by the donors, called "Gaydar," featured interviews quizzing people on the streets of New York City about gay culture trivia with little election-related content.

I don't know why anyone pretends that Ilana Glazer is a "comedian." She's not. She's just someone who gets work in comedy-related fields due to DEI.

If her name sounds vaguely familiar to you: She was one of the super-funny influencers that Bud Light's sister-brand Miller Light hired to tell male beer drinkers to stop buying their product because it's a Woman's World now, baby!

She gets work because she's not heinous for a female comedian. Except... she's not really a female comedian at all, so she's just an average-looking woman who is not funny.

Way to Win also funded a caravan with an inflatable IUD to Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Raleigh, St. Louis, and other locations. The tour, which featured content creators producing posts along the way, was designed to bring attention to claims that Trump would ban contraceptive devices.

The left is made up of children and immature adults LARPing as wrinkly children, so the only ideas they ever have are these "naughty" Peta-like stunts.

Unfortunately for the left, annoying people is not the same as influencing them.

In an apparent attempt to boost Harris' support among black men, Way to Win directly funded a series of YouTube interview-style talk shows called Watering Hole Media.

I'm glad I'm wearing my Cringe-Proof underwear today.

"I heard a brother say to me, 'Man, I didn't know I was going to be excited when Kamala was selected,'" said Jeff Johnson, a managing director with the lobbying firm Actum LLC who worked as a host for the Watering Hole Mediaseries "Tap In." "One brother said, 'I'm not even fully sure why,'" continued Johnson. "No, seriously, he said, 'When I look at her, though, she reminds me of my aunt,' and I said yes, so there is this communal piece."

The discussion, taped at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last August, buzzed about the "through line" from the Black Panthers to the Nation of Islam to Harris' nomination, suggesting her candidacy represented another moment in radical black politics.

That cringe was so satisfying I'm having a cigarette for the first time in 11 years.

More at the link.

The Democrats are doubling down, because they're a cult, not a political party, and while political doctrine may be repudiated, cult doctrine cannot be challenged. Anyone doing so is a Heretic and Blasphemer.

Jayapal and most congressional Democrats seem to be living in a bubble of their own making, clinging to the belief that their losses in the last election weren't so much about policy but messaging, the go-to excuse for both parties when they don't win majorities. Many Democrats, especially those in the progressive wing, believe they lost because they didn't go far left enough.

They couldn't be more wrong, and that thinking has put the Democratic Party in third place -- behind independents -- in terms of nationwide party ID, going from 37 percent in the 2020 exit polls to 31 percent in the 2024 exit polls. The last time a major party came in behind independents was Republicans during the the Watergate era some 50 years ago.

The existential problem Republicans had to overcome then wasn't the Democratic Party but whether they could persuade voters that their value proposition to the country still had merit and warranted another chance -- without Richard Nixon, of course.

Today, rather than undertaking some serious introspection as to what voters want and whether Democratic ideology still has value for the electorate, Democrats have turned to an old playbook: the Resistance.

Voters have been bombarded with videos showing congressional Democrats staging "protests" at federal buildings, complete with coarse language and silly chants more reminiscent of the 1960s than a modern political party. Their "fight back" strategy so far has featured violent Tesla takedowns, "days of action," fatuous Senate filibusters, obstructionist lawsuits, DOGE meltdowns and Jayapal's own "resistance labs."

There are three problems with this strategy.

First, going on the attack when a majority of the country has an unfavorable view of view of your party is likely going to have minimal impact.

Second, when you attack, you drive up your own negatives, exactly what the Democratic Party needs to avoid.

And third, the Republicans they are attacking have much higher positives than their own party. In a March 7-11 NBC survey, Trump was at 46 percent positive (19 points higher than Democrats), while Elon Musk and the Republican Party were both at 39 percent (12 points above Democrats).

Democrats' vendetta against Tesla, once the darling of the green movement, isn't just ineffective as political theater. It's damaging to the Democratic brand. The irony of protesters targeting Tesla owners, most of whom are probably supporters of both climate programs and the Democratic Party, shouldn't be underestimated.

Violence directed at people, businesses and property based on political differences is the antithesis of democracy. The silence from many elected Democrats in terms of this violence has very disconcerting. Charting the direction of the country is done through elections, not using violence against fellow citizens.

...

[P]ost-election, Democrats don't seem to understand that Biden's brand is their brand. His policies are their policies.

Rather than rethinking those policies, they have doubled down with an even harsher attack strategy of strange videos, awkward confrontation and foul language. This makes no sense.

"Making no sense" is the Democrat Cult brand:

Politics & Poll Tracker
@PollTracker2024

Overton Insights poll

2028 Democratic presidential primary

Kamala Harris 48%
AOC 15%
Gavin Newsom 10%
Josh Shapiro 9%
Gretchen Whitmer 6%
Wes Moore 3%
Stephen A. Smith 2%

3/24-3/28 RV

We are living in 1984. The world is nothing but propaganda, guerilla marketing, and gayops.

We live in, as I started saying a few years ago, an Empire of Lies.

I'm so sick of it.

Below, Democrats continue doubling down, with a Gen Z candidate proclaiming her full devotion to "fighting fascism" by supporting the transitioning of children.

In a Luntz's Dunces focus group of Democrats, they name their top candidates: AOC, Bernie Sanders, Jasmine Rachet, who is repeatedly named as the top Democrat candidate.

The "moderate" Democrat they name is... Pete Bootyjuice.

Posted by: Ace at 06:45 PM | Comments (176) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Now It Can Be Told: "Reporters" Writing About Biden's Mental Decline Now Admit That Everyone In DC Knew He Had "Lost a Step" In 2020, But For Some Reason Never Reported It Until Biden Had Retired from Politics

Ed Morrissey referred to this as the "Now It Can Be Told" school of fake "journalism."

Basically, when a lie is no longer useful, because the public knows it's a lie and is now punishing politicians and "journalists" for repeating it, Democrats and "journalists," but I repeat myself, execute a Nixonian Modified Limited Hang-Out lie in which they say they have finally nailed down the "reporting" on facts that everyone in the world had the facts about five years ago.

Their claim is that everyone who knew this five years ago were biased, partisan, and acting, as Jake Tapper's snarky chyrons say of Republicans, "WITHOUT EVIDENCE." You see, we were all "Prematurely Right," whereas the relentlessly-factual media has only recently finished sifting through the sands of evidence to Tell the Public What the Truth is just now.

You may think you were right and they were wrong. They insist, no, you were just partisan in guessing at what the facts were, whereas the Truth Scientists of the media actually conducted the necessary Journalistic Chemical Tests with their beakers and Bunsen burners and change-color strips and proven the truth just now.

It's like the communists of the 30s supporting Hitler because they supported Stalin and Stalin had reached a deal with Hitler to divide Europe between us, and attacking anyone who prematurely opposed Hitler before he proved he was a Bad Egg after all by invading Russia.

You think you knew the truth before the media. You're wrong, Stupid Bigots. The media just discovered the truth this past couple of months. Before that, it was unknowable.

I mean, except to the extent the media denied the truth previously.

But the media was right to deny the obvious truth previously. The media is always right. When they're wrong, they were right to be wrong at that time.

Fox News: Now It Can Be Told, Kamala Harris is an election denier who considered calling for recounts after her blowout loss.

Harris was 'completely shocked' by defeat, believed she could've won with more time, author says

Journalist Amie Parnes says Harris asked staff on election night if they needed a 'recount'

Former Vice President Kamala Harris was reportedly blindsided by her 2024 election loss to President Donald Trump and "bought the hype" that she would win, according to a new book.

"She was completely shocked, and [Harris' running mate] Tim Walz was shocked," The Hill reporter Amie Parnes said on the podcast "Somebody's Gotta Win with Tara Palmeri," released Thursday.

...

While continuing to discuss the confusion within the Harris campaign on election night, Parnes said that Walz was sitting in his hotel room "stunned."

"He has no words. And people are kind of explaining to him, same thing with her. And she's like, are you sure? Have we done a recount? Should we do a recount?" Parnes said on the podcast, recounting how Walz and Harris reportedly reacted to their defeat.

"They thought that they were going to win. And so, you know, when they come back now and say, 'Oh, no, we didn't really have a chance.' No, that's not what they were thinking. They thought they were going to win," she added.

Harris campaign staffers felt "gaslit" by leadership about Harris' chances at winning after being told that "things were looking good" for the candidate ahead of the election, according to Parnes.

Harris also "bought the hype" that she was doing better than she was, the author said.

"Kamala Harris was looking at her crowd size, and they felt like the vibe was strong and people were saying, 'Oh, we have more boots on the ground. We're doing better in fundraising,'" Parnes continued. "And she bought all of that. She bought the hype, and so did a lot of people in the campaign."

I'm old enough to remember when claiming you really won an election because of crowd size was enough to get you followed at airports by Air Marshalls.

According to the book, Harris reportedly told friends in the aftermath of her defeat that she could've won the election if she had more time and if Biden hadn't run for re-election.

"She could have won, she told friends, if only the election was later in the calendar -- or she got in earlier. In other words, Joe Biden was to blame," the authors wrote.

Actually, she could have won if Biden dropped out later. Harris was briefly ahead of Trump by four points in the polls for a couple of weeks after Biden dropped out. But then, as people listened to this Ding-Dong cackle insanely, and looked into hard-left past, they recoiled from her.

Friends of Harris said that she believed Biden's unpopularity and her late entry into the race tanked her campaign.

However, not all of Harris' friends believed time would have helped, according to the book.

"That is f---ing bonkers," one Harris friend reportedly said. "If Election Day was October first, we might have actually somehow pulled it off. Shorter was actually better, not longer."

THAT'S WHAT I JUST SAID JACKASS

One Harris advisor said the candidate's problem was "substance," not a lack of campaign time.

"I don't think we needed more time... We needed more substance. And she did not have more substance," the advisor is quoted in the book.

In some real Now It Can Be Told "reporting," the authors of this book say that they saw signs of Biden's decline during the 2020 campaign but for Reasons Too Complicated For You To Understand, the time was not ripe for reporting this until this f***ing week.

Joe Biden Was "a Shell of Himself" by End of Term. Hunter Biden Didn't Help.

Here, Annie Parnes talks about watching the debate. Vanity Fair is asking the questions, in bold-face.

At that point, in June 2024, President Biden's physical and mental capacities had long been a central issue in the campaign. Was his terrible debate performance still a surprise to you?

Parnes: It was just stunning to watch.

Allen: We'd been watching Biden's decline for a long period of time and, honestly, thought he had lost his fastball some when he was running in 2020. And it was still so shocking to see the leader of the free world so bereft of coherent thought.

You knew this from 2020 and never said a word about it, huh?

Your book describes the lengths to which the president's longtime inner circle--including first lady Jill Biden and senior advisers Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti--went to hide that decline. Who was most responsible?

Parnes: All of them. It's pretty remarkable how they kept him very closed off. He was a shell of himself. When he entered the White House, he was so, so different from the man who I covered as vice president, a guy who would hold court in the Naval Observatory with reporters until the wee hours.

Again, the admission that they knew since 2020 -- but kept silent.

Until now.

Now It Can Be Told, you see.

How large a part of the equation was Hunter Biden?

Allen: Most people have looked at Hunter Biden as somebody that his father has had to deal with. And what we really found in the reporting here is that Hunter Biden is somebody that his father wanted to deal with on political issues, that Hunter was, as was described to us by one source, his father's closest political adviser, which is mind-blowing. I mean, if you're seeking--and I don't mean this to knock Hunter Biden in an untoward way, but it is not clear that he has the best record as somebody you would lean on for judgment.

They're still walking gingerly around Hunter Biden. Apparently it's still forbidden to say he was an out-of-control drug addict, flesh-renter, and foreign agent.

The book doesn't use the word cover-up to describe the effort to conceal the extent of Joe Biden's deficits. Was it one?

Allen: I think our view is that there is more complexity to it.

Of course. The left must still be protected. They did an "oopsie," but certainly not a cover-up! There's "complexity!"

Largely, the people who are closest to the person in power are people who do not tell that person things they don't wanna hear...If you were going to stand up and say something, you would be thrown out of the room. That basically happened with Anita Dunn toward the end.

What we saw was a lot of bad decision-making and, perhaps at the very top, people putting their own interests, and what they believed were Joe Biden's interests, above the interests of the Democratic Party and the country. And so that's a failure. That's a moral failure, but maybe not a criminal one, which is what the term cover-up sort of implies, a criminal conspiracy, and we didn't reach that threshold.

The idea of a political cover-up has never in history required proof of actual crimes being committed. They certainly never imposed this new requirement on Trump's or Bush's own oopsies. It is fabricated for the nonce just to avoid saying the Democrat Party committed a cover-up.

Of course, they also insist the media didn't participate in the cover-up, either!

Dozens of reporters pursued the truth about Biden's age and health; I wrote about it way back in May 2023. Yet did we, the mainstream media, still blow it?

Parnes: No, I don't think we missed it. I think we were all onto it.

They "were all on to" the story of Biden's dementia, but they couldn't report it at the time because Biden's staffers told them not to.

But the problem is, I think [the Biden camp's] response was kind of unethical in a way. When I called the White House and I tried to do a story on the president's exercise routine--which is something that every president has sort of put out, minus Trump, maybe--that was pretty low-hanging fruit, and that should have been a sign to me at the time--and I think it was--the fact that they couldn't even tell me what he did, if anything. Those were all signs that something wasn't right there.

A common frustration for readers of presidential campaign books is, "Now you tell us! Why didn't you report this a year ago instead of saving it to sell books?"

Allen: I think we started our interviews in August, but the vast majority we did were postelection, for a variety of reasons. No, we didn't hold anything back for the book that would have been material to the election at all. Amie and I both did significant reporting during the year, or during the election, on all of these aspects.

You literally said that everyone in DC knew Biden was off his game in 2020 not ten minutes earlier in this very interview.

Meanwhile, Jake Tapper, who's also publishing his own Now It Can Be Told book in a few weeks, insists he's not "on the left."

Jake Tapper literally used to slide into my DMs to insist on this all the time. If I referred to him as a "liberal" reporter, he would tell me that he doesn't identify as a liberal and that I have no factual basis for saying so.

Just like he used to insist that we have no factual basis, except our own eyes and ears and experience, to say that Joe Biden was in steep mental decline.

Jake Tapper denies being 'on the left' during tense exchange with Trump agriculture secretary

CNN host Jake Tapper refused to be called a member of the political left in an interview with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins about President Donald Trump's tariff policy.

CNN host Jake Tapper refused to be labeled a member of "the left" in an interview with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Sunday about the fallout from President Donald Trump's tariff plans.

"So how long do you anticipate this tariff chaos is going to be going on? Thirty days, 60 days, 90 days?" Tapper asked Rollins on "State of the Union."

"I think it's really important to realize that last Wednesday was when the president announced this new American order, the new American economic plan," Rollins said. "We're now two days in. You've got two days of data, everyone, especially on your side, on the left, is freaking out."

"I'm not on the left," Tapper quickly said, prompting an amused response from the Trump Cabinet official. "All right, Jake, thank you," Rollins said.

Posted by: Ace at 05:45 PM | Comments (243) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Chief Justice John Roberts Stays -- Puts on Hold -- Hawaiian Judge's Order That Deported MS-13-Linked Alien Be Returned to the US

In other words, he sided with Trump, who asked the Court to stay this judge's interference in the President's conduct of foreign policy.

The Hawaiian judge in Maryland decided that she is president because A Liberal Woman Is Speaking Now.

Federal judge calls deportation of Salvadoran man in Maryland 'wholly lawless'

A federal judge's 22-page decision on Sunday called the deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to El Salvador "wholly lawless."

And after an appeals court on Monday denied a motion from the Department of Justice to stay the judge's order to return Garcia to the U.S., the Trump administration appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.

Abrego Garcia, 29, was deported to an El Salvadoran megaprison last month for being an alleged MS-13 gang member. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the Department of Homeland Security and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S., where he was living in Maryland.

"Although the legal basis for the mass removal of hundreds of individuals to El Salvador remains disturbingly unclear, Abrego Garcia's case is categorically different--there were no legal grounds whatsoever for his arrest, detention, or removal," Xinis wrote.

...

Also on Sunday, Attorney General Pam Bondi doubled down on the Trump administration's decision to deport Abrego Garcia.

"We have to rely on what ICE says," Bondi said in a "Fox News Sunday" interview. "We have to rely on what Homeland Security says. They're our clients, and I firmly believe in the work they are doing, and we're going to make America safe again. That was President Trump's directive to all of us."

The White House has remained firm in its decision to deport Abrego Garcia following a report from The Atlantic that federal attorneys said that there was an "administrative error" in bringing him to CECOT men's prison in El Salvador.

Court filings also show Abrego Garcia came to the U.S. in 2011 at the age of 16 after fleeing gang threats in El Salvador, the outlet reported.

They all claim that. If the government of the country they're from is repressive, they claim the government is persecuting them. If the country they're from doesn't have a government which is repressive, they're coached to claim they're being oppressed by "gangs."

Trump asked the Supreme Court to suspend the order.

The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to lift a judge's order requiring officials to bring an illegally deported Maryland man back from a high-security prison in El Salvador.

In an emergency appeal filed Monday morning, Solicitor General John Sauer asked the justices to suspend a midnight deadline a federal judge in Maryland set for the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported last month to his home country of El Salvador despite an immigration judge's 2019 order that he not be sent there because he could face persecution.

Sauer called U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis' order "unprecedented and indefensible." He argued that forcing the administration to demand Abrego Garcia's return from another government exceeded the judicial branch's power.

...

In a unanimous ruling, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals resoundingly rejected the claim that the administration has no power to seek Abrego Garcia's return -- and that Xinis' order violates the separation of powers.

Posted by: Ace at 04:51 PM | Comments (175) | Trackbacks (Suck)

US Stocks Down 4% on Tariff Fears; Trump: "Sometimes You Have to Take Medicine to Fix Something"

Wall Street is panicking. They like stability and predictability, and also, they like the world trade system they willed into being and have profited massively from for 50 years.

President Trump defended his trade policies amid a global market slide, saying economic discomfort is necessary to correct decades of bad deals. He denied triggering the stock market plunge, calling the turbulence "medicine" needed to heal the U.S. economy.

...

President Donald Trump, returning to Washington on Sunday, addressed the market turmoil gripping global investors. Speaking aboard Air Force One, Trump pushed back against claims that he was intentionally destabilizing the stock market. "I don't want anything to go down," he told reporters. "But sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something."

His remarks came at the tail end of a brutal three-day stretch that saw markets shed trillions in value. By Sunday evening, early trading suggested the U.S. stock market would open more than 4% lower on Monday--potentially capping one of the worst market routs in history. Oil prices fell below $60, the dollar weakened, and even gold--a typical safe-haven--dipped.

The sell-off was fueled by growing investor concern that the Trump administration would not reverse course on its aggressive tariff agenda. Markets had held out hope over the weekend for a sign of easing trade tensions. Instead, the administration sent a clear message: the tariffs are here to stay.

The "tariffs are here to stay" isn't just for purposes of negotiating with countries that rip us off. I think it's also intended to calm the markets -- the markets don't like tariffs, but they like uncertainty even less, and Trump is telling them they can be certain, at least, that the policy they don't like is the policy going forward. So they can make plans based on that certainty.

I do worry about the short- to medium-term disruptions of the tariffs and the not-small possibility that they can tip the weak economy into recession.

On the other hand, I'm not sure we can continue limping along under the present system. As the neocons said of the "stability" of the Middle East before the Iraq invasion, yes, the system is stable, but it's the stability of the lowest depths of the sewer. It's stable because it can't sink any lower.

Sean Davis
@seanmdav

Due to the deliberate government policies of the last 50 years, America can't produce its own food, fertilizer, energy, weapons, medicine, vehicles, clothing, or computers. The architects of those policies, as well as those who’ve gotten rich off them, will look you dead in the eye and tell you it's Actually Good to be forced to rely on your enemies for everything you need to survive.

Lee Smith
@LeeSmithDC

It's not just the trade regime, it's the political regime that grew out of it. The widening income gap, rising oligarchy, impoverishing middle class -- all underwritten by a deal with the most vicious totalitarian regime of modern times. That's why Trump called it Liberation Day.

On the other hand, upsetting the grubby stability of the Middle East didn't improve things.

Unelected Dictator of Europe Usula von der Leyen says that Europe is ready to agree to zero tariffs in exchange for zero tariffs, but I don't believe her. I believe this is yet another delaying action by the globalists, hoping to give time to Axis Media to coerce Trump into reversing his policy before it goes into full effect.

Also, note that she will only talk about zero tariffs on industrial goods. They're going to continue keeping US agricultural goods out, forever, because they're full-on protectionist at our extent and always have been and always will be.

Posted by: Ace at 03:52 PM | Comments (422) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Now That Jake Tapper's New Grift is Peddling a Book About the Democrat Party's Cover-Up of Biden's Dementia, He's Actually Asking Democrats About Their Lies

Jake Tapper lied too, of course --as did the entire leftwing media.

Biden is a Super Ager!

Posted by: Every Mainstream Media Outlet!

The media is in survival mode as it attempts, again, to claim they never really lied to you about Biden's mental acuity. Just as they never really lied to you about the origins of Anthony Fauci's killer frankenvirus, or the efficacy of masking, social distancing, and lockdowns, or Hunter Biden's laptop, or "a video-maker did a Benghazi" or "if you like your insurance you can keep your insurance."

See, the media was always skeptical of these claims. They certainly didn't repeat them like applause lines at a political convention and attack anyone who questioned them, and they definitely didn't lobby social media platforms and the government itself to deplatform and censor anyone questioning them.

Posted by: Ace at 02:43 PM | Comments (353) | Trackbacks (Suck)

"Womens'" Pool Finals Features Two Dudes Playing Each Other For Title of Best "Woman" Player in the World

F*ck you.

Piers Morgan has slammed the Ultimate Pool Group after two transgender women contested the final of a professional women's event in Wigan on Sunday night, calling the situation 'preposterous' and accusing the sport of 'cheating bulls***'.

The broadcaster's comments came after Harriet Haynes defeated Lucy Smith 8-6 in the final of a Women's Pro Series event, one of eight events on the Ultimate Pool Group's 2025 women's circuit.

Both players are transgender, resulting in a wave of criticism on social media - most notably from former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies, who described the event as 'b****y ridiculous and grossly wrong in every way' and said sports 'hate their female players to do this'.

It took me a while to figure it out but I think "b****y" must be the blood intensifier.

Sharing an X post from Reduxx Magazine, which claimed 'two men' were facing each other 'for a women's championship title', Morgan added: 'Why anyone supports this cheating bulls*** is utterly beyond me.'

The tournament, held at Robin Park Leisure Centre in Wigan, was streamed live on UltimatePool.tv and across social media.

Haynes' path to the title included victories over Megan Proctor and Mary Talbot, while Smith reached the final by knocking out Kirsty-Lee Davies and Danielle Randle.

This is not the first time Haynes has been at the centre of controversy.

In November 2023, she was handed a walkover victory in the Women's Champion of Champions final in Prestatyn after opponent Lynne Pinches refused to play, citing fairness concerns.

Pinches later told TalkTV: 'Whenever you play a transgender player, even if you win, it doesn't make any difference because in your heart, you know it's unfair.

'This is a category advantage, being biologically male and playing against females, gives you a clear category advantage.

'Every time I play a transgender player, I think about it before, during and after the match, about how unfair it is and how this is a level I can't reach.

'I watch some of the shots they play, and I think females don't play these shots down the rails like this and they don't clear up like this. They have a longer reach, a lot of them are taller than us.

'Women have been silenced because of fear of being transphobic, that is why people don't speak out about this subject. It's not a gender issue, this is a fairness issue.'

And if you think men have an advantage over women in billiards, wait till you see the records being smashed in"girls'" track and field.

As Guy Benson quipped on Twitter, oh look -- that thing that never happens has happened again. In one sense, though, this story from Portland, Oregon qualifies as a success story. What else can one call an effort by which a last-place finisher in track meets at the junior varsity level goes on to dominate at the varsity level?

Of course, that's not difficult to achieve when a biological male switches to compete against high-school girls:

Lia Rose, who reportedly used to compete as Zachary, won the high jump at the Portland Interscholastic League Varsity Relays with a height of 4 feet, 8 inches, beating the second-place finisher by two inches.

According to athletic.net, while competing against JV boys May 3, 2023, Zachary Rose finished 11th out of 11 competitors with a jump of 4 feet, 6 inches. ...

In 2024, Lia mostly competed against JV boys, with a top finish of second place and a personal record of 5 feet even.

And that's not the first time this season that a biological male has beaten female athletes in Portland. Fox News also notes that Ada Gallagher dominated girls in two races last month:

Lia's victory comes roughly two weeks after Ada Gallagher, a trans track athlete in the Portland area, blew out the competition.

Gallagher, a state champion last year, finished at 57.62 in the 400 meters, with Franklin High School's Kinnaly Souphanthong coming in second at 1:05.72. Gallagher's teammate, Quinnan Schaefer, was behind Souphanthong at 1:07.13.

In the 200-meter race, Gallagher finished in first place at 25.76, followed by teammate Addyson Skyles at 27.31.

I keep saying this but if these "girls" sports are going to allow men to compete, then they should be shut down, and girls (and men in wigs) should just compete against men.

Posted by: Ace at 01:25 PM | Comments (360) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Survey: Most Self-Identifying Lefties Say Killing Trump Is Justified

Start the geofencing and start getting warrants to raid old liberal women's homes.

SURVEY: 55% Of Self-Identified Leftists Say Killing Trump Is Justifiable

The more troubling trend is the rising violent rhetoric isn't just coming from the 'fringe' left, it's being 'normalized' by the left.

M.D. Kittle

The unhinged left, fueled by Trump Derangement Syndrome and seething hatred for Elon Musk, is trending more violent, according to a new study that finds political violence targeting President Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser is "becoming increasingly normalized."

The report, produced by the Network of Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) in partnership with Rutgers University's Social Perception Lab, finds a broader "assassination culture" appears to be "emerging within segments of the U.S. public on the extreme left, with expanding targets now including figures such as Donald Trump."

Less than a year after assassination attempts on then-presidential candidate Trump and the literally explosive violence against Musk's Tesla electric vehicles, it's no secret that leftists are ratcheting up violent rhetoric and actions. The more troubling trend is that an "assassination culture" isn't just coming from the "fringe" left.

"These attitudes are not fringe -- they reflect an emergent assassination culture, grounded in far-left authoritarianism and increasingly normalized in digital discourse," states the report, titled, "Assassination Culture: How Burning Teslas and Killing Billionaires Became a Meme Aesthetic for Political Violence."

...

"The reports found widespread justification for lethal violence -- including assassination -- among younger, highly online, and ideologically left-aligned users," the authors of the latest study write.

They note the spillover effect beyond the online world, illustrated by a proposed California ballot measure macabrely named "the Luigi Mangione Access to Health Care Act," celebrating the alleged leftist terrorist and murderer of United Healthcare head Brian Thompson. The ballot measure targets health insurance denials, one of Mangione's reported flashpoints.

On Friday, a California man reportedly "angry with pharmacies" was arrested on charges of murdering a Walgreens employee just days after the Luigi Mangione Act was filed with the state. ABC 30 reported that Erick Velazquez, the victim, was not a pharmacist, and was a respected husband and father of two.

How many times did you hear about the "gallows" outside the White House? It was a miniature model of a gallows, not a real working gallows.

J6ers were surveilled and arrested not for taking any criminal action but just for writing about the #Rigged election. Leftwing prosecutors and judges claimed that repeating forbidden ideas constituted joining a conspiracy against the US.

So they should get the J6 treatment, on steroids. They're openly calling for the assassination of the president.

Posted by: Ace at 12:22 PM | Comments (456) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Rant: MBAirlines - Air Travel is Broken

It’s no secret that air travel is completely broken, and the complaints I see online are growing in anger and desperation, including from many conservatives.

How has air travel gotten so much worse? Feels like every flight Im on is delayed hours. Airlines can just burn your whole day, for any or no reason, and you have no recourse. They are all terrible and none of them care.

Is this fixable?

— Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) April 3, 2025

3rd flight in a row delayed by hours unrelated to weather. One before this was a stuck seat back tray. Now, we have a “staffing issue” (plane here, can’t find a pilot)

Domestic American Airlines have become a logistical/customer service disgrace, with no incentive to improve

— Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) April 6, 2025

Like Mr. Sexton’s experience in the tweets above, a nightmare ordeal my wife and I recently had in trying to get from Airport A to Airport B is hardly unique. We’re certainly not the first persons to see the sun rise and subsequently set from the same terminal in the same day without ever taking off, but I do have some thoughts on the total breakdown of air travel:

• A cartel of airlines that carves up market share rather than competing for market share is not capitalism nor free enterprise, thus the airlines are not incentivized to compete or set themselves apart by being the carrier that consistently gets its customers to their destinations in accordance with the tickets being sold.

• The elite business school concept of increasing profit through cost cutting has virtually eliminated customer service in this service-intense industry. Rather than increasing profit through revenue growth, airline executives focus on mergers and expense reduction instead.

• Service is a product, but it is clearly seen as nothing more than an expense by airline executives. When flights are being cancelled, there is no one to talk to on the phone, and there are few if any available gate agents.

• I’ve twice recently had elderly relatives request wheelchair accommodations when they land, but none were there when they arrived. Whether it’s the airline’s responsibility or the airport’s responsibility to get the wheelchair there, it’s clear that airlines will take money from a senior to allow them to get from Point A to Point B, but the airlines then consider the burden of getting that senior from the jet bridge to baggage claim to be an unacceptable expense.

• While weather delays are an acceptable reason for delays and canceled flights, extended mechanical delays are not. If mechanical breakdowns are a predictable and accepted occurrence that “just happen” in this industry, there should be sufficient backup equipment available. I strongly suspect that corporate budget cutters consider any underutilized aircraft unacceptable rather than seeing those planes as a form of insurance to ensure that customers receive the service they paid for.

• Based on my air travel in recent years, mechanical delays have increased significantly. My recent nightmare trip was supposed to be a simple non-stop between two major airports, yet there were three separate mechanical delays involving two separate aircraft. The fact that mechanical delays are now routine indicates that there is an acceptance of relaxed aircraft maintenance, servicing, and inspection. That should be unacceptable in any industry, but it is a potentially deadly way to save money for an airline.

• I also understand that “mechanical delay” is also quite likely a euphemism for other snafus, since airline cost-cutters have made staffing and scheduling so brittle that any one interruption can ripple through the system, causing a broad failure. If this is the case, it also means that airlines have normalized lying to their customers. I don’t like to think about the ramifications of institutional dishonesty by a company whose product is traveling at 600 mph at an elevation of 30,000 feet.

• The contempt that airlines have for salary expense and for any expenses related to customer service is manifested in front-line employees no longer caring. Why should they? Since airline executives have made it abundantly clear that they have a spitting contempt for providing customer service and for paying employees to service those customers, why should airline employees care about the customer experience?

With Pete Buttigieg as the hapless figurehead of the Transportation Department, the situation only worsened over the preceding 4 years. But we now have a Republican Transportation Secretary and a Republican Congress. Air travel is deeply broken as the oligopoly of non-competitive carriers continues to cut service in pursuit of profit growth in the way our elite MBAs are taught – expense reduction. Perhaps it’s time for the party of free enterprise to intervene and break up this cartel. If the airline oligopoly is going to be allowed to perpetuate and further consolidate, then it is inviting further regulation to make it feel some pain in exchange for the cruelty it is inflicting on American air travelers.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (387) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

Venus And Cupid
Lorenzo Lotto

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (336) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 4/ 7 /25

Good morning kids. Of course the leading story is the aftermath and reactions to President Trump's tariff regime announcement last week. Of course. Despite the doom casting and politicization from the usual sources, already 50 countries are crying Uncle Sam and want to negotiate with Trump and team.There are other potentially massive benefits if this is given the chance it deserves to work.

Trump’s economic team has subtly suggested the impact of the import duties could extend to increasing foreign direct investment in American industries, incentivize a shift in economic investment away from market speculation and into industries focused on producing tangible value, and put downward pressure on interest rates by lowering the 10-Year Treasury Bond yield.The myriad economic objectives the Trump White House hopes to achieve through its tariff policy are ambitious, to say the least. However, if the policy succeeds, President Trump will have fundamentally moved the United States into a position to dominate the global economy for the foreseeable future. . .

One of the more important secondary policy goals that the Trump White House likely hopes to achieve is a reduction in the 10-year Treasury Bond yield. While most people focus on the Federal Reserve Bank and its interest rate policy, the yield of long-term government bonds impacts interest rates on types of debt held for longer durations, including mortgages, credit cards, and, most importantly, government debt.The tariffs are anticipated to push the 10-Year Treasury Bond yield lower, meaning the cost of the federal government’s payments servicing the national debt will be reduced. Notably, the inflationary cycle that set in under the Biden government—and was exacerbated by former President Joe Biden’s reckless spending policies—caused the cost to service the debt to increase dramatically and made it difficult for the government to take on any new debt.

I don't know the exact figure, but the amount of money from the budget each year that goes to just the serving of internets payments on the debt and not the debt itself is insane. And the total debt now stands at 36 Trillion dollars. Regardless of who was and is in offie, that is and always has been unsustainable.

Just to reiterate a point I tried making on Friday, while it's great that numerous countries are now signaling a willingness to drop their tariffs and trade barriers on US goods, but in order to really bring jobs back home, along with the dismantling of as much of the regulatory state and bureaucracy that can be accomplished, How about major tax holidays and reductions for any enterprise, or person who opens a factory on US soil and employs actual US citizens. While the dismantling and off-shoring of our manufacturing sector has been going on since the 60s, it was the granting of Red China most-favored nation trading status and a seat at the WTO in the 90s that accelerated the death spiral of America's industrial base. And the blame rests both with the Clinton Dems and Bush era GOP that followed, with the headlong rush towards globalization, mixed with domestic power politics, despite what it did to the nation and people who elected them and their parties. But somehow Trump is an inept, dangerous fool for attempting to put things right.

And while that is going on, we still have to contend with this insanity:

Democratic strategist James Carville said Friday his “Politicon” podcast that those who cooperate with President Donald Trump’s administration were comparable to Nazi collaborators in World War II.

Carville said, “How disgraced must these law firms feel now? How disgraced must these companies that are sucking up to him – that are giving him tens of millions of dollars for access. Do you know what’s going to happen? Do you know how this ends? Do you know these collaborators, what the country is going to feel towards collaborators with this regime? Maybe you need to go in history and see what happened in August of 1944 after Paris was liberated. They didn’t take very kindly to the collaborators. No. It was not a very pretty sight in the streets of Paris.” He added, “I’m not saying that these people should be placed in pajamas and have their head shaved, marched down Pennsylvania Avenue and spit on. I’m not saying that, but I’m saying that that did happen. And I’m saying that these people betrayed the French nation in the same way that I think that these law firms and these giant corporate conglomerates are betraying the United States. What their comeuppance is I can only guess. I don’t believe in any kind of, don’t believe you should assault anybody.”

Except that by carefully and consciously making this analogy, it's exactly what he's saying! There's a direct line to what he is saying, to what Bill Ayers believed once he and the Weathermen overthrow the government that he'd have to liquidate 25 million citizens who refused to recognize his power straight down to the actual Hitler and his Nazis he equates Trump and MAGA Americans with.

And on that note, we have this item that also revolts without necessarily being surprising.

Gov. Josh Shapiro attended an ‘iftar’ dinner at a mosque where an imam had previously declared that “Jews are the vilest people”, and announced a huge grant for the hate mosque.The $5 million grant, described as the largest ever given to a Muslim institution, came only 5 years after the Al-Aqsa Islamic Society in Philly was forced to apologize for posting hateful Islamic sermons by an imam delivered at its mosque declaring that the Arabs were superior to all races, that Jews were the “enemies of Allah” and the “vilest of all people”.

The imam also appeared to call on Muslims to take over the world.“By Allah, if faith had taken root in our hearts, things would have been different. We would have imposed the word of Islam upon the world, like those before us did,” Imam Abdelmohsen Abouhatab told the congregation at Al Aqsa.

He also quoted a Hadith describing the eventual Muslim extermination of the Jews.

With Jews like Josh Shapiro, we don't need Nazis. Can we ask Carville about what he thinks of those who cooperate with this Imam and all who think and act like him. Of course not.

Have a good day.

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
• In Colorado, and around the country, parents can be stripped of their rights to oversee their child’s medical decisions by government courts. (Hat tip to commenter Muldoon - jjs)
  Exclusive: Colorado Father Fights To Keep Government From Sterilizing His 14-Year-Old Son
  
• (Although) Roberts actually stayed in the official U.S. Ambassador's residence in Prague back when Norm Eisen was representing us there. This would be between 2011-2015 . . Roberts has strong ties to numerous rabid anti-Trump radicals, including James Boasberg, Beryl Howell and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Roberts appointed Boasberg to the FISA court. Boasberg's approval of the FISA warrants against Trump, made possible by Kevin Clinesmith's falsification of FBI documents, proved to be utterly corrupt. (And Boasberg is a crucial hack-in-black sabotaging DOGE and the deportation efforts - jjs)
  John Roberts flew to the Czech Republic to spend a week with Trump-hating Leftist lawfare strategist Norm Eisen? (And Norm Eisen insists that John Roberts "is not corrupt?")
  
• Would you hire Bill Clinton to be your marriage counselor?
  Hillary Clinton Can Go Straight to Hell

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:30 AM | Comments (340) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 7 April 2025

Top Story

• Turning your spacecraft off and on again and hoping for the best: The real story of Orion. (Ars Technica)
  
  Turns out more things failed on that test flight last year than they let on.
  
  At one point they were uncertain whether they could dock with the ISS or return to Earth. Not which one was safer, but whether either one was possible.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (136) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Overnight Open Thread - April 6, 2025 [Doof]

Sunset over the Gulf of America - Naples, Florida

Howdy Hordelings! Hope your Sunday has been a good one. I'm currently returning from a weekend in sunny and humid Naples, Florida (yup - the Pickleball Capital of the World!), so our good friend T Rex, the Dino himself, will be your chaperone for the first hour or so tonight. Please behave yourselves or else he might slap you with his little arms. Collect yourselves and step on in to enjoy tonight's ONT.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (359) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gun Thread: First April Edition!

Howdy, Y'all! Welcome to the wondrously fabulous Gun Thread! As always, I want to thank all of our regulars for being here week in and week out, and also offer a bigly Gun Thread welcome to any newcomers who may be joining us tonight. Howdy and thank you for stopping by! I hope you find our wacky conversation on the subject of guns 'n shooting both enjoyable and informative. You are always welcome to lurk in the shadows of shame, but I'd like to invite you to jump into the conversation, say howdy, and tell us what kind of shooting you like to do!

Holy Shitballs! How in the ever-loving Hell did it get to be April? Do you know what that means? Do you know? Hmmmm??

Q: Weasel, what does it mean?
A: It's NoVAMoMe planning time!

With that, step into the dojo and let's get to the gun stuff below, shall we?

Posted by: Weasel at 07:00 PM | Comments (299) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Food Thread: Whelkome Back My Friends To The Thread That Never Ends!

Come for the food...stay for the comedy!

Those are whelks, a sea snail found everywhere, including the Atlantic on the northeastern seaboard and across the pond in the U.K. and France. I have seen them for sale at a fish store (Randazzo's...a great place) on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, which is a great Italian shopping street, but I don't remember anywhere else.

They are mighty tasty, especially dipped into some excellent mayonnaise. I have never seen mayonnaise for sale in the markets here, so it is possible it was homemade. But the dirty little secret of a bunch of restaurants and cafes in France is that they buy a lot of food already prepared -- from their equivalent of Cysco -- so maybe there is wholesale mayo available here.

Those whelks are briny and sweet, with a pleasing texture that is sort of like a firm clam (stop that!). I enjoyed them, and if they are on the menu again at that local place (they were a special), I will definitely get them again.

Posted by: CBD at 04:00 PM | Comments (273) | Trackbacks (Suck)

First World Problems...

Uh Oh! A two-parter! At least there is no math!

What is that? That is a electric switch panel. Nice and simple, although why two of them are next to each other and one is larger is a question best left to French engineers, whose idea of efficiency is based on the concept that the shortest distance between two points is a cube.

Maybe the larger one controls both lights (nope)? Maybe it controls the power socket about two feet away (nope)? Maybe it is an extra switch for future lighting needs? Sure, maybe. I don't know. It's France...who can guess why they do things.

And here we have a three-part socket under a desk. Two power outlets, and one internet cable that is unused. It's about 25 feet from the aforementioned switch panel, and hopefully it is becoming obvious what the hell is going on here!

Yup! The large switch controls the right-side power plug. The one into which I had my monitor plugged. And since this is a new place and we were figuring out which switches did what, the monitor mysteriously turned off and on. But it wasn't obvious, because A. no line of sight between the switch and the monitor, and 2) the monitor wasn't always on.

The first electrician couldn't figure it out. The second one did!

Posted by: CBD at 02:00 PM | Comments (159) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Tariffs: Good, Bad, Or Indifferent?

The hell if I know!

But the volume of nonsense coming from people who can't balance a checkbook and don't understand even the most basic economic laws is getting hard to tolerate. Of course, some of it is reflexive Trump-Hate, and some of it is typical Democrat resistance to anything a Republican does.

It is important to separate the geopolitical effects of tariffs from the straight economic effects. Those economic effects are immensely complicated, and back-of-the-envelope analyses from journalism majors is of limited utility.

Tariffs and market share do not have a one-to-one correspondence. For instance, if we place a 10% tariff on assless chaps from Canada, that doesn't necessarily mean a 10% reduction in domestic demand for that product. They might be the best assless chaps in the world and are highly sought after, so the reduction in demand might be much smaller than 10% (inelastic demand). Or they may be the worst assless chaps available, in which case an 10% increase in their price might destroy their market share (elastic demand). Will domestic manufacturers of assless chaps pick up that demand? Probably, but maybe Croatian assless chaps are also quite good, and they get some of the demand.

The point is that economic changes are not static. There are millions of individual decisions that go into into economic activity (Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand"), and they change every day, so trying to predict outcomes is an exercise in futility.

What is more important in the long term is the profound change in our trade policy. Gone (I hope) are the days of free trade for our "trading partners" and regulated trade for us. Take a look at the graphic and you will see some startling disparities, and that is even after the U.S. tariffs are increased!

Obviously this chart is incomplete, and leaves lots of questions, including how "currency manipulation and trade barriers" is calculated. And...Average tariffs on all products? Highest tariffs? Are the tariffs weighted by trade value? But President Trump's strategy is already showing some success. Mexico is negotiating; Israel has cut all tariffs to zero; India and Vietnam are considering cutting tariffs.

[click for a larger version]

It is incumbent upon government to protect vital industries, regardless of whether they are efficient. We need a significant steel industry, and it doesn't really matter that South Korea or China or India can make steel more cheaply. It is a national security issue. We need a significant agricultural industry so that we can feed ourselves! We need significant domestic production of chips and other computer technology. The list goes on and on, and while it would be nice if they are the most efficient and best in the world (and some are!), that is secondary to being able to produce those products in times of need.

Switzerland famously subsidizes its farmers to the tune of almost $2,000/per person (not per farmer!), and that makes sense. Why should Switzerland be at the mercy of the whims of the rest of Europe? They want to be able to feed themselves. But should that be at the expense of America? 137% tariff on dairy products?

And just like that... countries are lining up to negotiate more reasonable trade.!

BREAKING: Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett just announced that over 50 countries have already reached out to begin negotiations following President Trump's new tariff policies:

"I got a report from the USDR last night that more than 50 countries have reached out to the… pic.twitter.com/6TFPfyH3mr

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) April 6, 2025

The goal of President Trump's tariffs is to drive manufacturing back to America, and stop the funding of foreign economies by American consumers. Increasing the cost of imports will push demand to domestic production. That's basic economics. Can it be done without economic dislocation in the world markets and the accompanying possibility of recession? Maybe... Maybe not. But if, at the end we get a revitalized American economy with more manufacturing and a more equitable trade system, the the short-term pain will be worth it.

Nobody knows how this is going to progress, because no major country has shifted its trade policies so comprehensively and so quickly. And the 20-something journalism majors who confidently write about this complex economic and geopolitical issue can be ignored. They simply don't have any idea what the f*ck they are writing.

Are there rational criticisms of President Trump? Absolutely.

I think his communication with the American people has been lacking. I hope that in the near future he lays out his plans, explains the potential downside, and more importantly explains the tremendous upside of an all-encompassing trade policy that favors America over all other nations. That means more good jobs, more domestic product demand, more tax revenue for the Leviathan, and an American economy that is insulated from the depredations of foreign governments that absolutely do not have the best interests of America in mind.

[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter and X/Twitter] And the Apple and Spotify feeds for CJN's podcast should be working!

Posted by: CBD at 12:00 PM | Comments (330) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Morning Book Thread - 4-6-2025 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading. Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM | Comments (306) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 6 April 2025

Top Story

• What's truly inside that bright red flame retardant used on bright red flames from the fires caused by California's definitely not bright but certainly Red government? No-one would say so we drank some to find out. (LAist)
  
  If you scroll way down in the article you'll find a table with the tiny legend:

  Measurements in micrograms per liter.

  Most of the metals mentioned are benign in the quantities found. Zinc and manganese you will find in dietary supplements because you need them to live.
  
  But what does 591 micrograms per liter mean for arsenic, a well-known poison?
  
  Well, the LD50 for arsenic in humans is somewhere between 1 and 3 mg per kg of bodyweight for adults. (It's better known for rats because nobody complains if you try it out on them.)
  
  Which means that if you drink twice your bodyweight in flame retardant, you'll likely die. So don't do that.
  
  To be fair, LAist interviewed scientists who told them exactly that, and they put it in the article:

  That said, multiple health experts told LAist that the risk to members of the public exposed to the retardant when doing activities like hiking, is likely low, given the concentration of contaminants present in our samples.

  "It should not be a reason for panic, but maybe it's a reason for caution," said Dr. Ana Navas-Acien, professor and chair of Environmental Health Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, who reviewed the results.

  Also, the stuff hangs around afterwards, and residents and cleanup workers should be careful with it. You can suffer ill effects from doses far short of lethal.
  
  Fortunately, the stuff is, as we noted, bright red.
  
  

• Reminder: Daylight savings has ended here in Oz, so from tomorrow I'll be posting at 4:30 AM, since otherwise I have 15 minutes tops from the end of my work day to the post needing to go up.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (200) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Night "Club ONT" April 5, 2025 [The 3 D's]

Welcome to Club ONT! A collaboration of your Sunday through Wednesday ONT Crew - The Disco, The Doggo, and The Dino. You have cracked the code - the Club is open. Don't just stand there, come on in!

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (387) | Trackbacks (Suck)