Can Donald Trump do anything right? What a moron! He tried to trumpet (see what I did there?) a “trade deal” between the US and the UK, except that there is no actual deal, just a “tentative outline of a deal”. You know, just like his ongoing “beautiful plan” for fixing health care, which was just smoke and mirrors, and never happened.
But this is even worse. Because the three major automobile manufacturers in the US – General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis – are now attacking Trump for throwing them under the proverbial bus. Trump claims that his tariffs will bring back manufacturing to the US, but they do nothing of the kind. According to the car manufacturers, “Under this deal, it will now be cheaper to import a U.K. vehicle with very little U.S. content than a USMCA compliant vehicle from Mexico or Canada that is half American parts”. In other words, Trump would be destroying US manufacturing, just like he is destroying our government, our universities, our legal system, our film industry, and raising prices for Americans dramatically, for no good reason.
These guys are hilarious. They are so happy to see Musk go down in flames, and laugh that not only has he lost 30% of his money, but that he thought that Donald Trump was his friend. So sad (not!).
Yeah, yeah, I’m sure you have heard one or more recounting of Trump’s 100 days in office. But here is one you must see from Jimmy Kimmel, as it is so much fun. It is even pretty short (less than 15 minutes), and also includes some great AI time travel silliness.
You probably read earlier today that Donald Trump went ballistic when someone told him that Jeff Bezos was planning on showing the costs of tariff charges on Amazon. Trump called Bezos, and Bezos backed down (although Bezos denied it was going to happen).
Now, if Trump believes that his tariffs are “beautiful”, why is he afraid if people know how much they cost? Trump claims he is being transparent, but he is anything but! And the White House said, “Of course he was pissed. Why should a multibillion dollar company pass off costs to consumers?”
Of course, pretty much all states charge sales taxes, and they show the cost of those taxes separately from the cost of the products. As economists point out, a tariff is just a sales tax levied on products from foreign countries. So of course they should be shown separately. Likewise, we have gasoline taxes from both the states and from the federal government, and those taxes are shown when you buy gas (even broken down by state and federal).
Now, here’s the kicker! How many of you know where Trump’s love of tariffs came from. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so dumb (and you know that Trump will never admit to making any mistake, not just about tariffs, but about pretty much anything). Here is the sad story of how and why Trump crashed the world economy, and won’t stop this stupidity.
Donald Trump claims that he cannot return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the US, even though the White House acknowledged he was sent by mistake, because Trump says he cannot meddle with El Salvador’s sovereign rights. Of course, he claims he has the right to completely take over several other sovereign nations.
There’s a good article in the National Review. Yes, I know, they are a conservative site, but it seems like even conservatives have their limits with Donald Trump. The article is titled, “Trump’s Cartoon Physics Takes America off the Cliff“. Here’s a quick quote to get you to read the whole hilarious article:
So it is with President Donald Trump who—convinced of his own superior intellect—has crowbarred open a newly delivered crate of ACME Trade Policy, unboxed Peter Navarro circa 1996, and strapped on his goggles and rocket shoes to catch that elusive, slippery trade deficit once and for all.
It is the funniest thing you will ever read about the current tariffs.
Obama has remained fairly silent for a long while, and I don’t blame him for that. But I am very happy that he decided that it was finally time to break that silence, and give a talk. An excellent talk. It is less than 20 minutes long (assuming that you jump to minute 1:25), and Obama speaks carefully but strongly about what has gone wrong (by both Republicans and Democrats), and has some ideas of what we need to do to try to fix it.
It is interesting that Obama never mentions Trump (or anyone else on either side) by name.
Pretty much every economist is pointing out that Trump’s tariffs will at least cause a deep recession, and at worst might tank the entire world economy. But here on Political Irony, we are just giddy that both SNL and Tom Tomorrow agree. We may be doomed, but at least we might go down laughing. Well, if we live that long.
I went to a Hands-Off protest yesterday at a relatively small town near where I live, and I was impressed by quite a few things. I couldn’t count, but it looked to me like there were at least 2,000 protesters there (way more than I expected!). There were whole families there, and people of all ages. And while people were definitely angry at what is being done by our government, the whole event was peaceful and calm.
There were big rallies in every state in the US, both blue and red leaning. Here are some photos from the protests.
We’re already seeing multiple news articles about even Republican politicians in the US Senate and House who are working on legislation to roll back the tariffs and limit Trump from imposing tariffs. Constitutionally, it is Congress that has the power to impose tariffs, not the President.
I’m looking forward to more protests in the future.
This is an article from The Bulwark. If you haven’t heard of it, they are mainly a group of former Republicans who are trying to help save us from Trump. Rather than post the whole article, here is a link to it.
Read it. I agree with pretty much everything they say. I’ve lived in a number of countries, and the plain truth is that the vast majority of countries will never trust the USA again. I can’t blame them. I’m not sure I can ever trust the USA, given that a plurality of Americans thought that Trump as president was a good idea.
If anything, this article doesn’t warn about all the things that will destroy America. For example, they mention how the rest of the world will likely stop using US dollars as their reserve currency, but they don’t point out that this will likely crash the dollar, when other countries stop holding dollars in reserve, and start dumping them. Indeed, according to Financial Times, the US dollar is already plunging.
International banks are also bearish on the US dollar. Deutsche Bank says, “We are becoming increasingly concerned that the dollar is at risk of a broader confidence crisis.” So, not only are Trump’s stupid tariffs already driving up the cost of goods, your money is going to be worth less. Which means that not only are we about to have a recession, but we are close to having a full-on depression.
Shortened on the internet to FAFO, this used to be described as “You made your bed, now lie in it”.
Unfortunately, this stupidity didn’t just harm people who voted for Donald Trump, it screws everyone: people who voted against him, and even people in countries around the world. The only people who benefit are basically Trump (because he only cares about himself), and Musk, who built his fortune from $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies, and tax credits going back more than 20 years. Yeah, that’s your taxes.
Trump is even screwing a lot of rich people: not just farmers, but also law firms, big universities, internet companies… basically anyone who doesn’t give or make Trump a bunch of money. It’s all about the grift.
And it isn’t just Nebraska Ranchers who are having problems. Remember when states like Texas and Florida were putting undocumented immigrants on airplanes and flying them to blue states? This was already insane, because it cost Florida $12 million — $12,300 per migrant — to fly them on chartered aircraft! And now, Florida doesn’t have enough workers, so Republicans politicians there are working to change their labor laws so that children can do the work that immigrants used to do. Does having your children working picking fruit in the hot Florida sun sound like making America great again? Hardly!
