Because Trump 2.0

[rmgill]

4 hours ago, Stargrunt6 said:

Injunction injunction what's your function...

 

 

Its like the federal judges suddenly have veto power over the Executive at a whim. 

[NickM]

Now...I made the mistake of looking at Facebook again, and surprise surprise surprise, they're posting embarrassing Trump stories, particularly 'Shocking cluelessness about the 4 US soldiers who died in the accident in Lithuania'.

 

EDIT: and they're marketing hats on IG with smartass messages as well (though anybody with a couple of working neurons can tell what they're trying to say).

Edited April 3, 2025 by NickM

[R011]

On 3/31/2025 at 10:18 AM, Murph said:

This:

It's literally been decades since that was true.

[Der Zeitgeist]

Liberation day! 

[Der Zeitgeist]

Goddamned penguins of the Heard & McDonald Islands (Human population: 0) are charging 10% tariffs on the US. 😅

[Olof Larsson]

38 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

Liberation day! 

Liberation from low prices...

 

At the company that I work in, this will make our multi year effort of gradually build up our production in the US a lot harder. But it will hurt our export from the US to Canada, South America and Europe. On the other hand the bulk of our production is based outside of the US, and that side will have less competition from our US competitors in the currently much healthier European, South American and Canadian markets.

Edited April 2, 2025 by Olof Larsson

[bfng3569]

1 hour ago, R011 said:

It's literally been decades since that was true.

Sweet. Then no complaints when the US takes its umbrella else where....   oh wait

[Skywalkre]

1 hour ago, Olof Larsson said:

Liberation from low prices...

Some pundits were saying he'd be a lame duck within 6 months.  Guess he's trying his best to meet that goal.

There's been several worrying signs recently for him.  Just in the last day those two special election House seats that went R were won at much lower margins than they were back in Nov.  The Ds won the Wisconsin Supreme Court election as well.

Then when you look at the polls he's only showing positive marks in his handling of immigration (but only barely).  His other numbers on key issues like the economy and inflation (the real issues that got him elected, despite what the kool-aid drinkers on here would have you believe) are in the negative and propped up to where they are from undying devotion from Rs... but even there some cracks are starting to show.  A recent CBS poll showed that even 43% of Rs are now saying his administration is not doing enough to lower the prices of goods and services (Ds and Independents are much worse than that).

In that same poll Americans as a whole are as willing to blame him as they are Biden for inflation and many pollsters are saying that these numbers aren't far worse because the American people are willing to give him some time before they start blaming him completely... and since tariffs won't do a damn thing to help expect some pretty awful poll numbers in the coming weeks/months as your average American loses patience with yet another administration that's not doing what they were elected to do.

Edited April 3, 2025 by Skywalkre

[R011]

1 hour ago, bfng3569 said:

Sweet. Then no complaints when the US takes its umbrella else where....   oh wait

What umbrella?

And presumably no complaints from you next time the US needs allied help and doesn't get it this time.

Edited April 3, 2025 by R011

[17thfabn]

7 hours ago, Sinistar said:

you can always ignore the courts but then there is the risk of the courts hauling you in in order to explain your behaviors

If the administration really wanted to push a constitutional crisis, this would be the moment.

A judge could order the administration to do what something. The administration could refuse stating that as a separation of power the judicial branch can't do that.

How would the judicial branch force the administration to do anything? It has no law enforcement officers. The U.S. Marshals belongs to the administrative branch, they don't answer to the judges.

Traditionally it has been respect for the judicial branch that has kept things running smoothly. 

[Sinistar]

15 minutes ago, 17thfabn said:

If the administration really wanted to push a constitutional crisis, this would be the moment.

A judge could order the administration to do what something. The administration could refuse stating that as a separation of power the judicial branch can't do that.

How would the judicial branch force the administration to do anything? It has no law enforcement officers. The U.S. Marshals belongs to the administrative branch, they don't answer to the judges.

Traditionally it has been respect for the judicial branch that has kept things running smoothly. 

 

'traditionally' is an illusion

this why some democrats had recently argued for stacking the courts and increasing the amount of supreme court justices once voting patterns shows that it had flipped conservative

and for a long time democrats or their allies - i.e., the aclu or similar pro bono legal clinics had employed the strategy of going judge shopping  selecting venues to bring suits-

i.e., for a long time using the 9th circuit to get around immigration laws

 

you saw that in the lawfare when a new york city venue was selected to bring a bizarre interpretation of what should have been a federal electioneering case but which the feds declined to take up

 

it is just that the republicans were well behind the curve in this regard and took them awhile to figure out how the game was being played or otherwise because of their own 'self-sabotaging'  philosophy - i.e., strict constitutionalist were getting outmaneuvered in the courts

 

as an independent and not identifying either as democrat or republican i observe the pattern that either side will tend to view the courts as an obstruction when they cannot get the decisions they want

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sinistar]

1 hour ago, Skywalkre said:

Some pundits were saying he'd be a lame duck within 6 months.  Guess he's trying his best to meet that goal.

There's been several worrying signs recently for him.  Just in the last day those two special election House seats that went R were won at much lower margins than they were back in Nov.  The Ds won the Wisconsin Supreme Court election as well.

Then when you look at the polls he's only showing positive marks in his handling of immigration (but only barely).  His other numbers on key issues like the economy and inflation (the real issues that got him elected, despite what the kool-aid drinkers on here would have you believe) are in the negative and propped up to where they are from undying devotion from Rs... but even there some cracks are starting to show.  A recent CBS poll showed that even 43% of Rs are now saying his administration is not doing enough to lower the prices of goods and services (Ds and Independents are much worse than that).

In that same poll Americans as a whole are as willing to blame him as they are Biden for inflation and many pollsters are saying that these numbers aren't far worse because the American people are willing to give him some time before they start blaming him completely... and since tariffs won't do a damn thing to help expect some pretty awful poll numbers in the coming weeks/months as your average American loses patience with yet another administration that's not doing what they were elected to do.

 

some if not most pundits i saw were predicting a kamala harris blowout

 

if you think trump is polling bad

then the democrats are polling even worse and are even more disjointed

the party represented by AOC or tim walz argue that they should be more woke which is why they lost in 2024

but the polling shows otherwise where that is minority position among the electorate- not the party elites but the average voters

 

so far the optics look like the democrats are doing things like trying to prevent the deportation of MS-13 or to go after tesla as practically the only ideas they have

whether that is true or not that is the perception

 

 

 

[rmgill]

Trump wasn’t going to win, remember? 

[Skywalkre]

2 hours ago, Sinistar said:

some if not most pundits i saw were predicting a kamala harris blowout

You were listening to a minority of the brain-dead ones, then.

2 hours ago, Sinistar said:

if you think trump is polling bad

then the democrats are polling even worse and are even more disjointed

You're probably referring to a recent poll where only 27% of Americans viewed the Ds favorably.  What the MAGA crowd always leaves out when referencing this is that the Rs were only polling about 10 points higher.  When 7/10 Americans have no opinion or don't care for the Ds and that only changes to 6/10 when looking at the Rs, the takeaway isn't that Americans love the Rs.  The takeaway is that Americans are tired of both groups.

The message to Trump when he won was pretty basic - make life better for the large chunk of this country that's been falling behind for decades.  He's done nothing so far to address that... and these tariffs will actually make life worse for those folks.  He's making the same mistake Biden and the Ds made after '22.

[Sinistar]

2 hours ago, Skywalkre said:

You were listening to a minority of the brain-dead ones, then.

 

yes

recall that trump won a majority vote including former biden voters

the pundits on election day on virtually all of the networks were saying that women were going to smash trump because it was about a womans right to choose and trans rights and trump is a deranged criminal then much else a distant second

were the minority

which is what i am saying

which means it is possible they are still out of touch with current polling now

you do not necessarily know what any of it means given that at best it is right about 50 / 50

though even that is sketchy but just a subjective interpretation

 

 

Quote

The message to Trump when he won was pretty basic - make life better for the large chunk of this country that's been falling behind for decades.  He's done nothing so far to address that... and these tariffs will actually make life worse for those folks.  He's making the same mistake Biden and the Ds made after '22.

 

the message to biden and harris was what-

not you

 

 

Edited April 3, 2025 by Sinistar

[seahawk]

That was a strong sign by Trump that the US stopped fucking around and will come down hard on anybody taking advantage of the US. I think the EU got of the hook way too easily and should have been hit much harder, the same goes for China. But I hope if they retaliate, Trump will simply strike back an further increase the tariffs for those leeches.

[Pavel Novak]

7 hours ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

Goddamned penguins of the Heard & McDonald Islands (Human population: 0) are charging 10% tariffs on the US. 😅

And here video following operation Penguin Freedom to force Heard and McDonald Islands to remove their WMD ee ... I mean their tarrifs:

 

 

[Coldsteel]

8 hours ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

Goddamned penguins of the Heard & McDonald Islands (Human population: 0) are charging 10% tariffs on the US. 😅

Well I don't know what I should have been expecting, only that it wasn't that. 🤣

[Der Zeitgeist]

34 minutes ago, Coldsteel said:

Well I don't know what I should have been expecting, only that it wasn't that. 🤣

Apparently they simply used the ISO standard list of countries and territories and put a flat 10% on everything without a trade deficit with the US. Those island have zero imports and zero exports with the US, so they get 10%. This is why they put tariffs on BIOT/Diego Garcia, which has zero inhabitants apart from a US military base.

For everyone else the formula is simply: trade deficit with the country, divided by the export of the country to the US, multiplied by 0.5. 

Which is also why you get stupid shit like putting higher tariffs on Jordan (which has a free-trade agreement with the US) than Egypt (which actually uses huge tariffs), simply because Jordan has a trade surplus with the US.

[Pavel Novak]

Penguins are anyway just freeloaders in security not paying enough for defence and just relying on America for protection against Orca. Also they don't buy enough Tesla and even worse they are not subsidizing Tesla sales.

[Stuart Galbraith]

10 hours ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

Liberation day! 

 

[urbanoid]

'Reciprocal' tariffs that are based not on tariffs charged by the other country, but on the trade imbalance, are not reciprocal by definition. E.g. a high tariff Brazil was reportedly ready to discuss lowering them for the US, but they don't need to now. Why? Because despite high tariffs the US has surplus in trade with Brazil, so Brazil gets 10% (which is a minimum tariff).

https://x.com/AlanMCole/status/1907595748583121372

https://x.com/ajayrotti/status/1907583122147012653

Absurd formula results in absurd outcomes:

https://x.com/Valen10Francois/status/1907708230047859055

https://x.com/BannedUa27703/status/1907716233090187671

How does the EU impose a '39% tariff' on US goods according to Trump? Trade deficit/exports to the US, 235.6/605.8 = 39%. Btw that doesn't include the services, where the US has a 100B+ surplus.

https://x.com/vonderburchard/status/1907692290971156677

All in all seems like a policy coined by people as 'gifted' as DEI hires.

 

Edited April 3, 2025 by urbanoid

[Stuart Galbraith]

Essentially, he is punishing the rest of the world for being good businessmen, and offering a soft fall for bad American practice.

I dont know how Republicans square that with whats been preached to me for the last 25 years as capitalism in action, but to me it sounds like Americans introduced Socialism by the back door.

Edited April 3, 2025 by Stuart Galbraith

[Pavel Novak]

Also it seems that despite all penguin "shitholes" are on the list for tariffs some more interesting "newly allied" countries are not there 🤔

Edited April 3, 2025 by Pavel Novak

[urbanoid]

Lutnick: "European Union won't take chicken from America ... they hate our beef because our beef is beautiful and theirs is weak."

 

 

https://x.com/atrupar/status/1907604332079394838

 

"Believe me, our country has the greatest beef. Other countries wish they had our beef but they don't which is why they are so jealous. Their weak foreign beef is no match for our homegrown American one. It is the best beef the likes of which you've never seen before."

 

Edited April 3, 2025 by urbanoid