Donald Trump

[stevebrooks]

If he weren't dead, I reckon Bernie Madoff would've been a shoo-in for Treasury.

So true! And if he wasn't fictional, the late great Hannibal Lecter for Attorney general would work well. Trump is a great admirer

I am sure somewhere we can find a fictional character that's not dead that would fit the bill, gotta be someone, I know, deadpool! I mean Trump wouldn't even get through the courtroom door with his head still in place if Deadpool was the AG!

[stevebrooks]

If he weren't dead, I reckon Bernie Madoff would've been a shoo-in for Treasury.

So true! And if he wasn't fictional, the late great Hannibal Lecter for Attorney general would work well. Trump is a great admirer

I am sure somewhere we can find a fictional character that's not dead that would fit the bill, gotta be someone, I know, deadpool! I mean Trump wouldn't even get through the courtroom door with his head still in place if Deadpool was the AG!

Actually you know, that's an approach I have never seen a politician use when looking for votes, to tell people just think of your favorite superhero and think about which one he would kill given the chance. I mean Deadpool would absolutely hate Trump, so would most of the other superhero's, one way to try and court the new voter segment! Would Deadpool kill my opponent? Yes? Then don't vote for him!

[pipbarber]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -dismissed

Justice does not matter and it never fucking did.

This is hardly a surprise, as soon as he won the election he was in the clear, as everyone knew. He is formally above the law now, he kind of always was, like every white billionaire.

Trumps communication guy, Steven Cheung:

“Today’s decision by the DOJ ends the unconstitutional federal cases against President Trump, and is a major victory for the rule of law. The American People and President Trump want an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system,” Cheung wrote.

(Grammar clearly not the communication guy's strong suit, but very loyal i'm sure).

Given the maga strategy of accusing their opponents of doing exactly what they themselves are doing, it is reasonable to read that quote as meaning: 'We will now commence to politically weaponise the justice system.' I'd hate to be Jack Smith right now. In fact, i'd be quietly organising a long holiday abroad.

[pipbarber]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ffs-border

Imposing tariffs constitutes a break from neoliberal economic doctrine. Perhaps it's a good thing then?

It's hard to see how this will benefit anyone really. If the cost of everything goes up by 25% the basic living standards of tens of millions of people will collapse. I just looked at $500 billion that canada export to the US and its almost entirely made up of resources, minerals, metals, wood etc. mexico manufacture all kinds of household products and food, in their export profile to the US and everything else comes from china. I mean....huh?

It's like a train is hurtling along the neoliberal line, we want it to go in a different direction because it's impoverishing people and destroying the planet. We need to move down the gears and in process hastily construct an alternative route. This move by Trump seems to me like just derailing the whole train while it's at full speed. It is a train wreck.

But what do i know! Maybe it will have unexpected benefits....somehow....

[Loki]

[stevebrooks]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ffs-border

Imposing tariffs constitutes a break from neoliberal economic doctrine. Perhaps it's a good thing then?

It's hard to see how this will benefit anyone really. If the cost of everything goes up by 25% the basic living standards of tens of millions of people will collapse. I just looked at $500 billion that canada export to the US and its almost entirely made up of resources, minerals, metals, wood etc. mexico manufacture all kinds of household products and food, in their export profile to the US and everything else comes from china. I mean....huh?

It's like a train is hurtling along the neoliberal line, we want it to go in a different direction because it's impoverishing people and destroying the planet. We need to move down the gears and in process hastily construct an alternative route. This move by Trump seems to me like just derailing the whole train while it's at full speed. It is a train wreck.

But what do i know! Maybe it will have unexpected benefits....somehow....

I have seen the argument put forward recently that this is a negotiating tool to try and tackle the Fentanyl problem that is "out of control" according to Trump, despite the fact that the border patrols this year stopped ten times as much Fentanyl entering the country as they did under Trump. This is quite obvious because Trump's border plan actually targets illegal immigrants as rapists, murders and drug importers, whereas the actual drug importers are, for the most part, US citizens visiting Mexico and bringing it back with them. So if you concentrate on immigrants and put less focus on the actual drug importers you are going stop less drug getting through.

However be that as it may be, Trump claims he is using the Tariffs to tackle a national security problem, that is stop the drugs, force Canada and Mexico to stop the drugs. It will have no effect of course because the the people tasked with stopping the drugs are actually on the US side, they are the ones tasked with checking border crossings into the US. Mexico, and Canada, are in no way obligated to stop US citizens leaving those countries to search them, and that might actually cause more problems than it solves. But Trump thinks he can use tariffs to solve the drug problem.

It won't work of course, and the fact is many of the goods from Canada are not replaceable, so they will still end up being imported into the US, but US citizens will end up paying a higher price.

[Loki]

I'm sure the Mexican and Columbian drug cartels will be really pissed at having to pay all those tariffs.


*Snork*

Waiting for the headlines,

"Border Patrol busts nefarious hair gel smuggling ring".

"800 boxes of USB sticks seized on Mexican border"

"Blackmarket barbeque utensils, do you know what your husband is doing!11!!"

"Hidden maple syrup tunnel uncovered under Niagara falls!11!!"

[pipbarber]

Perhaps computers and phones will become too expensive and people won't lose themselves in internet bullshit world fantasy. And as a consequence, suddenly realize Trump is a moron and a conman and Elon Musk is just an evil fartcup. That would be a sweetly ironic twist.

To change track, why has Tucker Carlson not been given a gig yet? He has to end up with some kind of a role, he's so very loyal now. What will it be?

[stylofone]

Imposing tariffs constitutes a break from neoliberal economic doctrine. Perhaps it's a good thing then?

I have no training in economics so I'm just speculating in an uninformed way, but there seems to be a range of different effects. I read a pro-Trump comment that tariffs lead to an increase in the value of the US dollar, and that cushions the increased cost for American consumers. But that means people will keep on buying Chinese crap, they won't open factories in America and rebuild local industry, i.e. make America great again (puke).

When we had to deploy seemingly the entire diplomatic corps to find PPE including masks when covid was at its peak, it was a reality check on the effects of globalisation. It is kind of insane to spend several decades losing the ability to make things, and instead burning billions of litres of oil to ship them over from China. Don't forget the billions of litres of oil for us to ship over the iron ore and coal they need to run the factories to make all that stuff. Why did we (the rich countries) do it? Because it was cheaper and more profitable to exploit the seemingly endless supply of Chinese workers. A pro-globalisation argument is that millions of Chinese workers are lifted out of poverty. This also involved the mass migration into Chinese cities, which has a downside too.

The experience of WW2, and also the current war in Ukraine, is that industrial capacity increases military capability. The neo-liberal mantra that free trade would lead to free societies has utterly failed in tyrannical China, instead it has massively empowered the Communist party.

I heard a professor on the radio this morning trying to make sense of it all, but to me the most likely answer is that there is no sense to it. Trump is a racist and a narcissist. The tariffs on Canada are a manifestation of the latter trait, he feels challenged by the very idea of Canada and especially the younger, famous and popular Justin Trudeau. For China and Mexico, it's mostly just the racism. It doesn't matter to Trump what the effects are, if he gets to look tough and be a racist, then any bad effects will be blamed on Hunter Biden or whatever Elon Musk retweets to distract everyone.

[stevebrooks]

News from the Trump deportation plan, they are supercharging de-naturalization, the count of the -to-be-deported, has changed from up to 10 million to 10 to 25 million. So that is a minimum of 10 million right? How are they doing this, will it seems an obscure law from 1906, the denationalization law, enables them to automatically remove nationalization from anyone who has intentionally or unintentionally made a mistake on their naturalization papers, since the law doesn't specify the category of "mistakes" something as small as spelling mistake could see a person de-naturalized.