I just left voicemails for my two NC senators and one house rep to do everything they can to block these tarriffs and suggested they should just resign if they don't have what it takes to stand up to Trump.
Everyone who cares should do this, today and every day . Republicans and Democrats in Congress must work together to stop the madness. And they must be reminded that if they won’t, or don’t,then at the midterms the American people,will vote for folks who will..
To quote President Obama when Democrats lost midterms in 2010, "I'm not recommending for every future President that they take a shellacking like I did last night."
It's time for p47 and his enablers to get shellacked in 2026 and again in 2028.
The party of denial, delusion, dereliction of duty, dumb, and dumber. They’ve spun a web of lies along with right wing media to intentionally mislead the people for so many decades while chipping away at education and siphoning off the resources to the wealthiest, that we are now left with an idiocracy full of ignorant voters, a shredded economy, a ruined international reputation, and all we have to show for it are a handful of billionaires. I’m embarrassed to be an American and I’m disgusted and repulsed by the MAGA Republican Party. They approved the appointments of the worst Cabinet in history, and the most corrupt Supreme Court ever. Now we have a demented king and a dead legislative body and we can’t get rid of any of them fast enough to save us.
You’re so right—this is the end result of decades of GOP political propaganda. Trump and MAGA have thrown us all under the bus. Getting out from under it without too many broken bones isn’t going to be easy. But it will be up to us to rebuild our nation and make it once more something we can be proud to be a part of. It begins now with contacting our senators and representatives, our states attorney generals, and donating to organizations that are leading the resistance. It will continue in the mid-terms.
One of the biggest challenges we have is convincing people that they need to take an active role for democracy to work. If people spent just 10% of the time that they do on their cell phones and social media to promote democracy, we’d be so much better off.
Alene, I could not agree with you more. I'm embarrassed as well. I'm also a bit confused with the lack of reaction from our young people. Campuses should be on fire with protests. People are being thrown out of the country without due process and the Supreme Court condones it. Do we have to have another great recession to wake the populace up? What will it take for most people to realize how bad the MAGA GOP is?
IMO, I think young people are disgusted with both parties and the aging boomers and pre-Boomers who refuse to step aside for change. The problem with this country is that no one is courageous enough to truly make change happen. We have a lot of great young legislators on the Democratic side who show a lot of promise for the future, unfortunately, there are a bunch of dinosaurs who won’t get out of the way.
I have noticed the lack of young people, too. They seem disengaged from life. Many see the future as bleak, they don’t see themselves ever affording a home, many don’t even want to have children. I am concerned about them, and for the future.
G2, please don’t think that I am a fan of SCOTUS, but I just listened to today’s video recording of Jen Rubin and Andrew Weissmann, and it made me feel a little better about the deportations situation.
Mr. Weissmann pointed out that yes, by a 5-4 split, the Roberts’ court put off doing the morally right thing in the deportation case based on procedural issues, BUT, more importantly, by 9 to 0, the justices agreed that those deported must have due process. So, even the despicably horrible Alito and Thomas admit that the government must protect the rights of the people they are trying to ship off.
With the country so weak, like it has never been before, even worse bad actors could step in. The Christian taliban for one. We saw how religious zealots rotted Afghanistan. Is that the fate of the USA?
I think if people like Mike Johnson, Pete Hegseth, and all the other fake Christians have their way, it could be. I hate what we are doing to upcoming generations. We’re setting them back even further than they were. The American dream is now the American nightmare.
An entirely avoidable economic disaster. An entirely avoidable measles outbreak that has claimed the lives of three people so far, two of them children. An entirely avoidable immigration policy that has illegally snatched people off the street, from their homes, from their cars and sent them to states far away from legal defense teams or, much worse, to concentration camps for which we taxpayers foot the bill in a foreign country ruled by a fascists like drumpf. The party of DEATH needs to be rooted out of the U.S.!
Meanwhile, in good ol’ Texas, we’re so proud of Representative Chip Roy for introducing legislation to require either a birth certificate or a passport to vote! As Trump himself has said, if everyone is allowed to vote, Republicans would never win another election. On to the midterms!!
I live in TX-21 and call Chip’s offices regularly. Last week a live person answered! It was 20 minutes of me posing legitimate questions followed by the non-answer “I understand.” I finally asked “what do you understand?”
Susan Hull--the citizenship-proof legislation is just another power grab for the Federal Government (aka Trump and his cronies) over the power of the States--based on the same old playbook that is founded on sexism, racism, colorism, tribalism, anti-anti-anti until the cows come home. In the United States, idiocy masquerading as smart is undergoing a big bloom.
1. Zero sum game. If someone lost $3 trillion, somebody else won it. IMHO Trump has surrounded himself with people who know how to short the market.
2. A few right wing Republicans are opposing him. Grassley has a bill that would remove his power to adjust tarriffs. A right-wing group with financial ties to Leonard Leo and the Koch network, the New Civil Liberties Alliance sued, claiming that Trump’s decision to invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not give him the power to “usurp” Congress’s right to control tariffs or “upset the Constitution’s separation of powers.” https://newrepublic.com/post/193612/donald-trump-lawsuit-tariffs-far-right-group
3. He now is at odds with Musk, who is recommending a tariff free zone, the US and EU.
I feel the same about point 1. But I don’t know the facts. I’ve read he’s invested in crypto. I have less feel for crypto than for shorting the market without anyone reporting on it. Crypto, I would think, is vulnerable. We should cut the power lines to crypto, and just dismantle the servers. Legally, of course! I would think Grassley and company would be up for that, since crypto may be Trump’s hedge.
We, meaning those who share the goal of ridding the nation of autocracy and autocrats, need to have a plan. Nothing is worse than “regime change” without a plan for the day after. I suspect Grassley and company have such a plan, but they are not on the same side we are on. They are the enemy, and we should not forget that.
The enemy of my enemy is not my friend…forget the catch-phrases.
Yes,I agree. Trumpworld is the same old tale of the Emerald City: mirrors, smoke, and heroes n villains. The Empire’s Wizardry is Legion. It oinks. But I wouldn’t say they’re “governing.” They’re stealing. The point of pulling tariffs out of a top hat and making them disappear in smoke & flash is market manipulation. Not market freedom, not bargain and give and take and growth. Not freedom and enterprise. Just theft.
It’s how Empire has operated for thousands of years of human history. Very little has changed since Rome became Empire. When the Emperor couldn’t dare to raise taxes, he devalued the coins, took out more of the silver and kept it. These fellows manipulate markets. Trump is their perfect scarecrow, their bump in the night boogeyman.
As with any magic act, the whole trick hinges on your attention being focused here, not over there.
Empire is organized crime. Trump is a MacGuffin. As dear Kamala used to say, when permitted, Donald Trump is not a serious person. That’s an understatement. He’s a powerless fool.
Empire is destroying careers, spreading fatal diseases, erasing futures, and causing unnecessary misery. Trump is tearing up the greens. Which is the worse crime? I say the systemic crime is worse than one nihilist's dance with death. We can thank the revolving planets that he’s 79. But Empire is what, 2,000+ years old?
Why would Empire do this? Why: They “Read history". They know that Rome was killed by climate change, and they’re scared they’ll cease to be. They find security in more stuff. A whole lot more, like all of it. “Build your flimsy barriers strong. Turn round and round, make warm your nest. Among the other hunting beasts, keep heart and face, not to betray that doomed and splendid race you are so proud of, to which you belong…”
If by Revolution you mean, as I do, changing one’s perspective, changing one’s very mind, sorting all the peas and lentils and sand into piles, then I say it is not easy. That alone makes it worth doing.
Frightening. Yet he looks so dumb! Needless to say, these names that are mentioned have no meaning for me. They’re all Empire, and the fact that they can remain hidden while committing crimes that are legal, is a key component of their power. But the general, political media have demonstrated an unwillingness to face, or to give account of, their existence, it would appear. I suspect it’s largely because they are not in politics. Until now.
It is a shame that the Republicans had a label of "Conservative" rather the a more accurate label of Radical Reactionaries. Maybe properly labeled people would have looked more carefully as they stacked the Supreme Court and offered their version of government and law.
I always wonder if Mitch McConnell is going to continue be so proud about his contribution to the Radical Reactionary agenda.
I have seen Trump and his companies close up. I really was not impressed with him nor his people. I was not impressed with their intelligence and they misrepresented and when caught had no shame.
He’s a dead letter. Brain dead. Your literary imagination can’t comprehend just how little goes on inside his brain-bowl. He’s human, but not in the way you imagine, where Mitch thinks about spiritual stuff, or anything beyond the flavor of his next stool softener.
Thanks. Yes. Trump even owns the chaos currently as his masterful plan (I have been around enough to know that in 6 months as the house races heat up we may find alternative facts/fables galore.)
I would love The Contrarian to address the danger lurking in the fact that China owns so much of the US deficit debt. If this is true, couldn’t this strong arm approach by the current Regime come back to bite us/the US?
Thanks. Feels like all (rational) bets are off with this Trump unplugged scenario. I know MTG thought she was being clever shifting her assets into US bonds but is that even a go to position anymore. And the dollar as a benchmark?
US securities are actually being dumped on the market right now. Yet another by-product of the Stable Genius who thinks the penguins of Heard and McDonald islands have been mooching us for far too long.
Trump claimed that was so China couldn't trans ship their trade through there to avoid the tariffs. The thing is, there's nothing there. No people, no infrastructure, nothing. 🙄
"Be Strong, Courageous, and Patient, and GREATNESS will be the result!”
He sounds like every grifting, prosperity gospel TV preacher ever. "Send in your $1000 'seed' offering and it will grow into riches untold! BELIEVE!!!"
Never thought I'd be in the position to agree with former representative Joe Walsh, but he's 100% correct when he says no one person should have the power to sink the world economy, and that this is the fault of congressional republicans for not clawing back their constitutional authority over tariffs [and every other Article I authority he's seized from them without a whimper].
The New York Times did an experiment back during Dump I. They bought some of those little Trump gold-like coins and chucked them in a glass of Diet Coke. Within minutes, all that was left were some gray-green stubs. Shoulda paid attention back then.
'If they expected a better economy under unified Republican rule, the business moguls were not paying attention. “The last five recessions all started while a Republican was in the White House (Reagan. G.H.W. Bush, G.W. Bush twice, and Trump),” Jeffrey Frankel from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government wrote last year. That soon may be the last six recessions. “A remarkable 9 of the last 10 recessions have started when a Republican was president. The odds that this outcome would have occurred just by chance are even more remote: one out of 100.”'
So, why isn't it obvious to everyone by now that Republicans are bad for America?
Consumption of large amounts of KoolAid and propaganda from Faux Noise has damaged the ability to think critically. Living in a world of alternative reality has warped their judgment.
He is not mentally ill, he's a spoiled brat who has been coddled his entire life, he has deep character flaws, stealing , lying and cheating, that's not mental illness, that's being a little "bastard." Not the same thing as mental illness.
According to the 1974 (i.e., ancient) Goldwater Rule which psychiatry itself adopted, it is not ethical to diagnose someone you've never personally interviewed. But that rule, like so many other practices, has been twisted in favor of the money there is to be made from writing books, etc. about how nuts Rump really is. But you know what? It doesn't really matter who exposes his derangement. There are too many beneficiaries of his madness.
Many medical people have said he is mentally ill. You can form an opinion of a person's state from observing them. One time there was a host on TV and a viewer(nurse I think) noticed a lump on their throat,wrote in and he got it checked...cancer, taken care of and he was OK.
Wards: A huge group of psychologists did that in the last Trump administration. I don't know everything that happened as a result, but it seemed at the time like there was this big national shrug.
Aside from it being unethical to diagnose the unseen, that "huge group of psychologists" has no power, and diminishing credibility in the public eye. I suppose it made them feel they had done SOMEthing, but in reality? Nothing...
We don’t teach critical thinking skills anymore. It’s all STEM ,at the expense of the teaching of humanities. This needs to be a bigger part of the current conversation. Because to this reader it’s obvious.
Yes, David, it is painfully obvious, but the teaching of critical thinking has been disappearing for decades. There's no time or support for it, not after Bush's No Child Left Behind made raising standardized scores the aim of teaching, and practicing toward those tests the heart of education. Raises and school funding were based on how well students regurgitated those canned answers; anything else became extraneous as classrooms became more overcrowded, teachers became more frustrated and underpaid, and the brightest kids tuned out (or sold their speed on the street).
Think: who are you going to get to teach critical thinking when at least one generation has no idea what you're talking about? Better label an unruly kid with the wholly fictional ADHD and medicate them, than properly fund and practice education. Millions of kids are coming up who were never taught how to tell fake from real.
David: Exactly that. We are in a watershed of decades of the same forces having had their long term and planned effect on public education. And too many in education and politics bought it. As you say, STEM is another name for "what we left out of education," especially important for a democracy that depends on its polity to at least know something about one's political foundations. (Ha ha ha.)
The real shame in all of this is that it takes an economic depression to get through the skulls of millions to see the cult for what it is. Could this actually be the proverbial 2 x 4 over the head that finally gets through? It’’s pretty simple. Stop electing these people!
This is the result of the howler monkey breeding program that is now known as MAGA. Ronald Reagan started it with the "welfare queen" dog wistle attacks on The Government and the active support of Rupert Murdock's Fox propaganda machine and with the assistance of Rush Limbaugh. It went into hysterical overdrive with the Birthers. They used muscular, aggressive language that scratched the bigot itch of the tens of millions of ignorant Americans who live in isolated communities whose only life experience is with people exactly like themselves. In response Liberals offered Kumbaya lullabies and timid group hugs. Those in this country who still have a conscience and sense of decency (Liberals, Moderates, & Conservatives) have to grow a pair if the USA is to survive in anything other than the name.
Bob Egbert: Ah, yes . . . Murdoch, the owner of the Pretzel Press. I look in on Fox sometimes, in the same way I would look through the glass at my drooling uncle thinking Why don't they comb his hair?
Agent Orange has insisted that he was always right for decades. Remember his campaign against the release of the wrongly convicted Central Park Five? Before their trial he took out a huge ad, filling 2 pages of NYT, calling for their convictions. After the court reversed their convictions, he continued to call for keeping them incarcerated. Sure, his racism played a role, but his refusal to ever admit wrongdoing figured into his response as well. He is, was, and always will be a thoroughly corrupt and horrible man.
I just left voicemails for my two NC senators and one house rep to do everything they can to block these tarriffs and suggested they should just resign if they don't have what it takes to stand up to Trump.
Everyone who cares should do this, today and every day . Republicans and Democrats in Congress must work together to stop the madness. And they must be reminded that if they won’t, or don’t,then at the midterms the American people,will vote for folks who will..
To quote President Obama when Democrats lost midterms in 2010, "I'm not recommending for every future President that they take a shellacking like I did last night."
It's time for p47 and his enablers to get shellacked in 2026 and again in 2028.
And 2030. That is census year.
Only takes 3 Republican House members....https://jerryweiss.substack.com/
And that action would be a great memorial for Jerry.
Great idea! I think I'll add that suggestion to my phone calls today.
I hope you have better luck than I did.
I just sent the following emails to "my" house rep and two senators.:
"Dear Mr. Hill/Boozman/Cotton,
Just wanted to check and see if you have woken from your taxpayer funded slumbers yet.
There are now two items of legislative action you have voluntarily ceded to the executive branch:
1. The power of the purse
2. The levying of consumer taxes on US consumers, aka “tariffs”
You also did not show up to the townhall which was held on March 18, 2025, and to which you were invited. Scared to meet your voters?
I hope the majority of your voters remembers all of this come (for Hill and Cotton) November 2026 (for Boozeman) your next election."
Love it!
The party of denial, delusion, dereliction of duty, dumb, and dumber. They’ve spun a web of lies along with right wing media to intentionally mislead the people for so many decades while chipping away at education and siphoning off the resources to the wealthiest, that we are now left with an idiocracy full of ignorant voters, a shredded economy, a ruined international reputation, and all we have to show for it are a handful of billionaires. I’m embarrassed to be an American and I’m disgusted and repulsed by the MAGA Republican Party. They approved the appointments of the worst Cabinet in history, and the most corrupt Supreme Court ever. Now we have a demented king and a dead legislative body and we can’t get rid of any of them fast enough to save us.
You’re so right—this is the end result of decades of GOP political propaganda. Trump and MAGA have thrown us all under the bus. Getting out from under it without too many broken bones isn’t going to be easy. But it will be up to us to rebuild our nation and make it once more something we can be proud to be a part of. It begins now with contacting our senators and representatives, our states attorney generals, and donating to organizations that are leading the resistance. It will continue in the mid-terms.
One of the biggest challenges we have is convincing people that they need to take an active role for democracy to work. If people spent just 10% of the time that they do on their cell phones and social media to promote democracy, we’d be so much better off.
Alene, I could not agree with you more. I'm embarrassed as well. I'm also a bit confused with the lack of reaction from our young people. Campuses should be on fire with protests. People are being thrown out of the country without due process and the Supreme Court condones it. Do we have to have another great recession to wake the populace up? What will it take for most people to realize how bad the MAGA GOP is?
IMO, I think young people are disgusted with both parties and the aging boomers and pre-Boomers who refuse to step aside for change. The problem with this country is that no one is courageous enough to truly make change happen. We have a lot of great young legislators on the Democratic side who show a lot of promise for the future, unfortunately, there are a bunch of dinosaurs who won’t get out of the way.
I have noticed the lack of young people, too. They seem disengaged from life. Many see the future as bleak, they don’t see themselves ever affording a home, many don’t even want to have children. I am concerned about them, and for the future.
G2, please don’t think that I am a fan of SCOTUS, but I just listened to today’s video recording of Jen Rubin and Andrew Weissmann, and it made me feel a little better about the deportations situation.
Mr. Weissmann pointed out that yes, by a 5-4 split, the Roberts’ court put off doing the morally right thing in the deportation case based on procedural issues, BUT, more importantly, by 9 to 0, the justices agreed that those deported must have due process. So, even the despicably horrible Alito and Thomas admit that the government must protect the rights of the people they are trying to ship off.
Obviously, I can’t explain this as well as Mr. Weissmann, so I recommend the video: https://contrarian.substack.com/p/andrew-weissmann-and-jen-rubin-on-7a3
With the country so weak, like it has never been before, even worse bad actors could step in. The Christian taliban for one. We saw how religious zealots rotted Afghanistan. Is that the fate of the USA?
I think if people like Mike Johnson, Pete Hegseth, and all the other fake Christians have their way, it could be. I hate what we are doing to upcoming generations. We’re setting them back even further than they were. The American dream is now the American nightmare.
Exactly, Alene!
"The party of denial, delusion, dereliction of duty, dumb, and dumber. They’ve spun a web of lies..."
You mean when the Democrats and others lied about Joe Biden's cognitive decline? Not that I expect there will ever be a formal apology...
You landed at the wrong airport.
I haven't landed at all, but I will allow you to believe such if it makes you happy.
An entirely avoidable economic disaster. An entirely avoidable measles outbreak that has claimed the lives of three people so far, two of them children. An entirely avoidable immigration policy that has illegally snatched people off the street, from their homes, from their cars and sent them to states far away from legal defense teams or, much worse, to concentration camps for which we taxpayers foot the bill in a foreign country ruled by a fascists like drumpf. The party of DEATH needs to be rooted out of the U.S.!
Meanwhile, in good ol’ Texas, we’re so proud of Representative Chip Roy for introducing legislation to require either a birth certificate or a passport to vote! As Trump himself has said, if everyone is allowed to vote, Republicans would never win another election. On to the midterms!!
I live in TX-21 and call Chip’s offices regularly. Last week a live person answered! It was 20 minutes of me posing legitimate questions followed by the non-answer “I understand.” I finally asked “what do you understand?”
And they said, “I understand."
Susan Hull--the citizenship-proof legislation is just another power grab for the Federal Government (aka Trump and his cronies) over the power of the States--based on the same old playbook that is founded on sexism, racism, colorism, tribalism, anti-anti-anti until the cows come home. In the United States, idiocy masquerading as smart is undergoing a big bloom.
1. Zero sum game. If someone lost $3 trillion, somebody else won it. IMHO Trump has surrounded himself with people who know how to short the market.
2. A few right wing Republicans are opposing him. Grassley has a bill that would remove his power to adjust tarriffs. A right-wing group with financial ties to Leonard Leo and the Koch network, the New Civil Liberties Alliance sued, claiming that Trump’s decision to invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not give him the power to “usurp” Congress’s right to control tariffs or “upset the Constitution’s separation of powers.” https://newrepublic.com/post/193612/donald-trump-lawsuit-tariffs-far-right-group
3. He now is at odds with Musk, who is recommending a tariff free zone, the US and EU.
4. We can take advantage. Read Feathers of Hope. https://jerryweiss.substack.com/
Only takes 3 Republican House members to kick it off.
I feel the same about point 1. But I don’t know the facts. I’ve read he’s invested in crypto. I have less feel for crypto than for shorting the market without anyone reporting on it. Crypto, I would think, is vulnerable. We should cut the power lines to crypto, and just dismantle the servers. Legally, of course! I would think Grassley and company would be up for that, since crypto may be Trump’s hedge.
We, meaning those who share the goal of ridding the nation of autocracy and autocrats, need to have a plan. Nothing is worse than “regime change” without a plan for the day after. I suspect Grassley and company have such a plan, but they are not on the same side we are on. They are the enemy, and we should not forget that.
The enemy of my enemy is not my friend…forget the catch-phrases.
Revolution is easy. Governing is hard. So Trump isn't governing. The people behind him are doing that while he uses taxpayers money to go golfing.
Yes,I agree. Trumpworld is the same old tale of the Emerald City: mirrors, smoke, and heroes n villains. The Empire’s Wizardry is Legion. It oinks. But I wouldn’t say they’re “governing.” They’re stealing. The point of pulling tariffs out of a top hat and making them disappear in smoke & flash is market manipulation. Not market freedom, not bargain and give and take and growth. Not freedom and enterprise. Just theft.
It’s how Empire has operated for thousands of years of human history. Very little has changed since Rome became Empire. When the Emperor couldn’t dare to raise taxes, he devalued the coins, took out more of the silver and kept it. These fellows manipulate markets. Trump is their perfect scarecrow, their bump in the night boogeyman.
As with any magic act, the whole trick hinges on your attention being focused here, not over there.
Empire is organized crime. Trump is a MacGuffin. As dear Kamala used to say, when permitted, Donald Trump is not a serious person. That’s an understatement. He’s a powerless fool.
Empire is destroying careers, spreading fatal diseases, erasing futures, and causing unnecessary misery. Trump is tearing up the greens. Which is the worse crime? I say the systemic crime is worse than one nihilist's dance with death. We can thank the revolving planets that he’s 79. But Empire is what, 2,000+ years old?
Why would Empire do this? Why: They “Read history". They know that Rome was killed by climate change, and they’re scared they’ll cease to be. They find security in more stuff. A whole lot more, like all of it. “Build your flimsy barriers strong. Turn round and round, make warm your nest. Among the other hunting beasts, keep heart and face, not to betray that doomed and splendid race you are so proud of, to which you belong…”
If by Revolution you mean, as I do, changing one’s perspective, changing one’s very mind, sorting all the peas and lentils and sand into piles, then I say it is not easy. That alone makes it worth doing.
Apologies for any heat.
https://alternativefundinsight.com/how-next-us-treasury-secretary-once-broke-the-bank-of-england/
Frightening. Yet he looks so dumb! Needless to say, these names that are mentioned have no meaning for me. They’re all Empire, and the fact that they can remain hidden while committing crimes that are legal, is a key component of their power. But the general, political media have demonstrated an unwillingness to face, or to give account of, their existence, it would appear. I suspect it’s largely because they are not in politics. Until now.
It is a shame that the Republicans had a label of "Conservative" rather the a more accurate label of Radical Reactionaries. Maybe properly labeled people would have looked more carefully as they stacked the Supreme Court and offered their version of government and law.
I always wonder if Mitch McConnell is going to continue be so proud about his contribution to the Radical Reactionary agenda.
More like the Party of Really Dumb Assholes now clutching their pearls and going, "but WHO could possibly have seen this moment coming?"
When you ax the entire Fire Department in a fit of pique, then set fire to your own house, who you gonna call, Ghostbusters?
I have seen Trump and his companies close up. I really was not impressed with him nor his people. I was not impressed with their intelligence and they misrepresented and when caught had no shame.
He’s a dead letter. Brain dead. Your literary imagination can’t comprehend just how little goes on inside his brain-bowl. He’s human, but not in the way you imagine, where Mitch thinks about spiritual stuff, or anything beyond the flavor of his next stool softener.
Good question. I do think he’s having fun now playing contrarian to Trump while taking up a seat in the Senate.
Thanks. Yes. Trump even owns the chaos currently as his masterful plan (I have been around enough to know that in 6 months as the house races heat up we may find alternative facts/fables galore.)
I would love The Contrarian to address the danger lurking in the fact that China owns so much of the US deficit debt. If this is true, couldn’t this strong arm approach by the current Regime come back to bite us/the US?
Japan owns more. Now Japan and S. Korea are joining forces with CHINA! Against us!!
I've been asking why we don't borrow at Japanese rates -- about 1% -- to arbitrage some of our debt. 29% is owned by foreigners.
Trump created more debnt as #45 than all his predecessors combiined.
Thanks. Feels like all (rational) bets are off with this Trump unplugged scenario. I know MTG thought she was being clever shifting her assets into US bonds but is that even a go to position anymore. And the dollar as a benchmark?
US securities are actually being dumped on the market right now. Yet another by-product of the Stable Genius who thinks the penguins of Heard and McDonald islands have been mooching us for far too long.
Trump claimed that was so China couldn't trans ship their trade through there to avoid the tariffs. The thing is, there's nothing there. No people, no infrastructure, nothing. 🙄
"Be Strong, Courageous, and Patient, and GREATNESS will be the result!”
He sounds like every grifting, prosperity gospel TV preacher ever. "Send in your $1000 'seed' offering and it will grow into riches untold! BELIEVE!!!"
Never thought I'd be in the position to agree with former representative Joe Walsh, but he's 100% correct when he says no one person should have the power to sink the world economy, and that this is the fault of congressional republicans for not clawing back their constitutional authority over tariffs [and every other Article I authority he's seized from them without a whimper].
The New York Times did an experiment back during Dump I. They bought some of those little Trump gold-like coins and chucked them in a glass of Diet Coke. Within minutes, all that was left were some gray-green stubs. Shoulda paid attention back then.
'If they expected a better economy under unified Republican rule, the business moguls were not paying attention. “The last five recessions all started while a Republican was in the White House (Reagan. G.H.W. Bush, G.W. Bush twice, and Trump),” Jeffrey Frankel from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government wrote last year. That soon may be the last six recessions. “A remarkable 9 of the last 10 recessions have started when a Republican was president. The odds that this outcome would have occurred just by chance are even more remote: one out of 100.”'
So, why isn't it obvious to everyone by now that Republicans are bad for America?
Consumption of large amounts of KoolAid and propaganda from Faux Noise has damaged the ability to think critically. Living in a world of alternative reality has warped their judgment.
Propaganda works.
Why don’t we admit what many of have been thinking, that Donald Trump is mentally ill. I did see one comment noting “deranged”
I’ve been hoping that those in the medical professions would, for the good of the country, speak out from their experiences requesting
He is not mentally ill, he's a spoiled brat who has been coddled his entire life, he has deep character flaws, stealing , lying and cheating, that's not mental illness, that's being a little "bastard." Not the same thing as mental illness.
There's no saying that Trump couldn't be a "bastard" and a crazy bastard too.
You have a point.
Be careful what you wish for. Who's behind his deranged majesty in the succession?
According to the 1974 (i.e., ancient) Goldwater Rule which psychiatry itself adopted, it is not ethical to diagnose someone you've never personally interviewed. But that rule, like so many other practices, has been twisted in favor of the money there is to be made from writing books, etc. about how nuts Rump really is. But you know what? It doesn't really matter who exposes his derangement. There are too many beneficiaries of his madness.
Many medical people have said he is mentally ill. You can form an opinion of a person's state from observing them. One time there was a host on TV and a viewer(nurse I think) noticed a lump on their throat,wrote in and he got it checked...cancer, taken care of and he was OK.
Wards: A huge group of psychologists did that in the last Trump administration. I don't know everything that happened as a result, but it seemed at the time like there was this big national shrug.
Aside from it being unethical to diagnose the unseen, that "huge group of psychologists" has no power, and diminishing credibility in the public eye. I suppose it made them feel they had done SOMEthing, but in reality? Nothing...
Read Jamelle Bouie's editorial in today's NYT. Agent Orange is incapable of rational thinking.
We don’t teach critical thinking skills anymore. It’s all STEM ,at the expense of the teaching of humanities. This needs to be a bigger part of the current conversation. Because to this reader it’s obvious.
Yes, David, it is painfully obvious, but the teaching of critical thinking has been disappearing for decades. There's no time or support for it, not after Bush's No Child Left Behind made raising standardized scores the aim of teaching, and practicing toward those tests the heart of education. Raises and school funding were based on how well students regurgitated those canned answers; anything else became extraneous as classrooms became more overcrowded, teachers became more frustrated and underpaid, and the brightest kids tuned out (or sold their speed on the street).
Think: who are you going to get to teach critical thinking when at least one generation has no idea what you're talking about? Better label an unruly kid with the wholly fictional ADHD and medicate them, than properly fund and practice education. Millions of kids are coming up who were never taught how to tell fake from real.
you have to ban cell phones in all schools first......
patricia; Isn’t that the truth. Plus, social media and now AI will continue to distort education. And politics!
STEM is focused on technology, not basic sciences.
David: Exactly that. We are in a watershed of decades of the same forces having had their long term and planned effect on public education. And too many in education and politics bought it. As you say, STEM is another name for "what we left out of education," especially important for a democracy that depends on its polity to at least know something about one's political foundations. (Ha ha ha.)
And art and design (STEAM) makes things happen…
Call it what it is:
I like that Jennifer called out tariffs for what they are -
CONSUMER TAXES
The real shame in all of this is that it takes an economic depression to get through the skulls of millions to see the cult for what it is. Could this actually be the proverbial 2 x 4 over the head that finally gets through? It’’s pretty simple. Stop electing these people!
This is the result of the howler monkey breeding program that is now known as MAGA. Ronald Reagan started it with the "welfare queen" dog wistle attacks on The Government and the active support of Rupert Murdock's Fox propaganda machine and with the assistance of Rush Limbaugh. It went into hysterical overdrive with the Birthers. They used muscular, aggressive language that scratched the bigot itch of the tens of millions of ignorant Americans who live in isolated communities whose only life experience is with people exactly like themselves. In response Liberals offered Kumbaya lullabies and timid group hugs. Those in this country who still have a conscience and sense of decency (Liberals, Moderates, & Conservatives) have to grow a pair if the USA is to survive in anything other than the name.
Bob Egbert: Ah, yes . . . Murdoch, the owner of the Pretzel Press. I look in on Fox sometimes, in the same way I would look through the glass at my drooling uncle thinking Why don't they comb his hair?
Well said, Bob. But you do a great injustice to howler monkeys.
Agent Orange has insisted that he was always right for decades. Remember his campaign against the release of the wrongly convicted Central Park Five? Before their trial he took out a huge ad, filling 2 pages of NYT, calling for their convictions. After the court reversed their convictions, he continued to call for keeping them incarcerated. Sure, his racism played a role, but his refusal to ever admit wrongdoing figured into his response as well. He is, was, and always will be a thoroughly corrupt and horrible man.
he wanted them killed
One person should not have this much power in a representative democracy.
PRECISELY THE POINT!!! 👍