The Many Faces of US Politics...

[Gabriel_Hurl]

He just called Conor McGregor his favourite Irishman

[Banks of the Bann]

He just called Conor McGregor his favourite Irishman

Makes sense.

[Milltown Row2]

He just called Conor McGregor his favourite Irishman

When's he's pulling strings to to get Tate out Romania is all ya need to know, probably get Tate to set up his Family ethics committee

[Mourne Red]

I don't know how it's happened with all this tariff bullshit of his but inflation lower than expected at US CPI today

Tariffs have only started. It'll take a bit of time for them to work their way into the inflation figures. Inflation is a lagging indicator.

Thanks Oakleaf.. Was trying to wrap my head around why Inflation dropped with all his bs but inflation lagging explains it

[Truthsayer]

He just called Conor McGregor his favourite Irishman

Sounds about right for Trump... a racist rapist...

[Eamonnca1]

"Sleepy Joe" oversaw the biggest stock gains in US history, 9 straight quarters of GDP growth, 12 straight months of inflation decline... and "the greatest businessman ever" crashed it all in 45 days.

[Blowitupref]

From Journalist Bret Stephens

Democracy Dies in Dumbness

It used to be common knowledge — not just among policymakers and economists but also high school students with a grasp of history — that tariffs are a terrible idea. The phrase "beggar thy neighbor" meant something to regular people, as did the names of Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis Hawley. Americans broadly understood how much their 1930 tariff, along with other protectionist and isolationist measures, did to turn a global economic crisis into another world war. Thirteen successive presidents all but vowed never to repeat those mistakes.

Until Donald Trump. Until him, no U.S. president has been so ignorant of the lessons of history. Until him, no U.S. president has been so incompetent in putting his own ideas into practice.

That's a conclusion that stock markets seem to have drawn as they plunged following the Trump triple whammy: first, tariff threats against our largest trading partners, spelling much higher costs; second, twice-repeated monthlong reprieves on some of those tariffs, meaning a zero-predictability business environment; finally, his tacit admission, to Maria Bartiromo of Fox News, that the United States could go into recession this year, and that it's a price he's willing to pay to do what he calls a "big thing."
In short, a willful, erratic and heedless president is prepared to risk both the U.S. and global economy to make his ideological point. This won't end well, especially in a no-guardrails administration staffed by a how-high team of enablers and toadies.
What else isn't going to end well, at least for the administration? Let's make a list.
The Department of Government Efficiency won't end well. It is neither a department nor efficient — and "government efficiency" is, by Madisonian design, an oxymoron. A gutted I.R.S. work force won't lower your taxes: It will delay your refund. Mass firings of thousands of federal employees won't result in a more productive work force. It will mean a decade of litigation and billions of dollars in legal fees. High-profile eliminations of wasteful spending (some real, others not) won't make a dent in federal spending. They'll mask the untouchable drivers of our $36 trillion debt: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and defense.

The threats to our allies won't end well. It might seem sophomorically funny, sort of, to troll Justin Trudeau, just once, as "governor" of "the great state of Canada." It's grotesque, horrifying and idiotic to contrive phony pretexts to embark on a relentless trade war against our friendliest neighbor — not least because it has suddenly boosted the political fortunes of Trudeau's successor, Mark Carney, at the expense of the Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre.
It is reasonable to try to push Chinese companies out of the Panama Canal. But threatening to overturn a Senate-ratified treaty to reclaim the canal by force is bound to seed permanent distrust of the United States. It's intriguing to contemplate the lawful and voluntary purchase of Greenland. It is Putinesque to threaten, in an address to Congress, to take Greenland "one way or the other," thereby threatening the NATO ally that is the territory's sovereign.

The outreach to the European far-right won't end well. Not least among the problems with parties like Germany's AfD or France's National Rally is that they are haters of all things American: our vulgar culture, revolting fast food, rapacious capitalism and imperial pretensions. Perhaps the greatest single achievement of the 20th century was the destruction, both physical and spiritual, of German militarism and the threat it posed to Germany's many neighbors.
But an America that walks away from NATO while empowering those anti-American parties won't achieve greater security for anyone, including ourselves. It will lead to a Germany once again led by fascists and willing to arm itself with nuclear weapons.


The Ukraine negotiations won't end well. If the Trump administration wants to bring about a lasting end to the war, it would do everything it can publicly to support Kyiv, including a friendly meeting with Ukraine's president,Volodymyr Zelensky, more rapid delivery of arms, negotiations over a long-term U.S. security guarantee and membership in the European Union. It would also do everything it can to oppose Moscow, including by seizing Russia's frozen assets to fund Ukraine's military purchases. Then it would use that leverage to get Zelensky to accept a settlement that involves the loss of Ukrainian territory.


What team Trump has achieved is the opposite: A Russia that sees even less reason to settle, a Europe that sees more reason to go its own way, a China that believes America will eventually fold and a once-again betrayed Ukraine that will have even less reason to trust international guarantees of its security.
There's more of this: Sunday's arrest and threatened deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a green-card holder and pro-Palestinian activist at Columbia, may even get pro-Israel civil libertarians to defend his rights while making a martyr of him on the far-left. But the pattern is clear. Ignoring the political corollary to Newton's Third Law of Motion — that every action has an equal and opposite reaction — the administration will now reap precisely what it should avoid.
Trump's critics are always quick to see the sinister sides of his actions and declarations. An even greater danger may lie in the shambolic nature of his policymaking. Democracy may die in darkness. It may die in despotism. Under Trump, it's just as liable to die in dumbness.

[Milltown Row2]

That's bollocks... it's the Dems fault, you heard here first! 77 million can't be wrong 

[J70]

That's bollocks... it's the Dems fault, you heard here first! 77 million can't be wrong 

Yeah, but what is the Dems fault is the current absence of guts and strategy.

Schumer and seven other Dem senators are going to cave and allow the GOP to shove an appalling, highly partisan extension of government funding program down the country's throat.

Yes, the options are horrible, but they won't even try to fight. I'm someone whose family will have to scramble to pay the mortgage if the government is shutdown, but I'm sure I'm far from alone in thinking that the Dems should have made the Republicans own this shutdown and all the ensuing havoc it would bring on top of the economic and geopolitical shitshow.

We need a new opposition party to face down this MAGA insanity. The Dems are not fit for purpose.

[Rossfan]

Can't believe how the Democrat Party seems to have given up opposing the madness

[J70]

Can't believe how the Democrat Party seems to have given up opposing the madness

Bernie (who is not a Dem) and AOC the only two raising any kind of opposition.

[dec]

As a practical matter I don't think that blocking the CR would do any good. The Republicans actually want as much of the government as possible to shut down so a shutdown this week would play in to their hands.

[J70]

Whatever Trump is going to do, he's going to try to do it regardless of any shutdown.

Trump and MAGA just want to burn it all down, whether that's this weekend or six months from now. Let's just get it over with. Trump is laughing at Schumer's promised cave, mocking him for having "guts".

If Trump wants to shut down services across the board that Americans will suddenly realize they depend on, then let him own it and face the blowback. Now is as good a time as any as he fucks around on all fronts. He'll eventually have to sit down with the Dems after they, hopefully, forcefully make the case that this is what Trump and MAGA wanted and turn public sentiment against him.

Schumer thinks he's still back in the old days. I'm sure he thinks he is doing the right thing in a situation where there are no good options, but this madness needs to be confronted. And there's nothing like giving the people a good dose of "elections have consequences" to bring them to their senses.

[Jell 0 Biafra]

I can see that point of view too.  But those consequences don't apply just to Trump voters, mores the pity.  And shutting down the govt means that everyone who depends on govt for their income is without an income while it's shut down.  And if Congress shuts down, TrumpElon won't be shy about keeping it shut.

There's lots of reasons I'd be happy to see Schumer gone, but I don't envy him this particular position.

[seafoid]

    https://www.ft.com/content/4a09e73d-069f-42c1-bc4c-1d8537c0f00c
Trump's incoherent economic agenda
The White House's mishmash of radical policies is sapping confidence in America

    It now appears that neither a slowing economy nor plunging stock prices are enough to deter US President Donald Trump from his radical economic agenda. Beyond promising to buy a Tesla to prop up the beleaguered stock of Elon Musk's enterprise, he is in fact doubling down. Asked about the economic and market turbulence, the self-proclaimed "tariff man" argues that a "period of transition" may be necessary as his administration brings "wealth back to America". It is "a detox period" according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The cleanse has, so far, raised the spectre of stagflation, wiped $5tn off the S&P 500, and undermined the nation's standing with global investors.

The short-term pain might be easier to digest if the means — and the ends — were intelligible. Indeed, if the overarching goal is to, however vaguely, "Make America Great Again", then the hotchpotch of economic measures that Trump has so far offered lacks any coherent theory of change to get there.

Take Trump's central plan to rebuild 25th president William McKinley's tariff wall around America. The idea is to urge foreign companies to set up factories in the country, spur a renaissance in manufacturing jobs, and use revenues from import duties to slash taxes. These aims are antithetical: if more production did shift to the US, tariff revenues would suffer. Then there's Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Curbing bureaucratic excess is worthwhile. But Doge has been undermining its own efforts. It recently sacked a team responsible for using technology to streamline public services. A plan to cut the Internal Revenue Service's staff by as much as half would also weaken tax collection.

Next, Trump wants the US shale sector to "drill, baby, drill". But his team has also indicated a desire to see crude prices fall to support consumers, perhaps to $50 a barrel or lower. That would be uneconomical for US producers. US energy secretary Chris Wright added this week that higher oil production could come through innovation. If so, fomenting economic uncertainty, including through on-and-off tariffs, is no way to encourage it or the broader manufacturing boom the administration seeks. Trump's national strategic reserve of Bitcoin — an inherently volatile asset, with a lack of obvious utility — is another befuddlement.

Finally, there's the rumoured effort to weaken the dollar — perhaps in a so-called "Mar-a-Lago accord" — to help turn America into an industrial export powerhouse. A global deal would probably be a non-starter when key trade partners are peeved by Trump's tariff threats. Nor does everyone in the administration seem to be on the same page. Bessent recently insisted that the Treasury's strong dollar policy remained intact.

What can investors and companies deduce from all this? One is that assuming this administration will operate coherently is a gross oversight. Some even wonder if the chaos is part of a deliberate grand plan to restructure America's economy and its place in the global system. Either way, the end result is a loss of economic confidence. Now even the promise of tax cuts and deregulation is losing its allure amid the unpredictability.

Trump may continue to paint a weakening economy and falling markets as part of a disruptive yet necessary shift for America's greater good. But the longer his methods remain inscrutable, while heaping costs on to households, businesses and investors, the harder that sell will become. Indeed, rather than trading pain today for a brighter tomorrow, it seems increasingly as though America is swapping its long-established model for an amorphous and far-fetched notion of a future one.