The Trump Presidency, Season 2

[Innula Zenovka]

Grok is interesting if you press him on the difference between "sourced from" and "manufactured within" in this context.

https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtMg%3D%3D_d2eded8b-1467-4936-b477-1b99c03fabf4

 

[Free]

Grok is interesting if you press him on the difference between "sourced from" and "manufactured within" in this context.

https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtMg%3D%3D_d2eded8b-1467-4936-b477-1b99c03fabf4

Anyone notice an issue with the percentage of sourced components (says Grok...) being listed as "US and Canada" & "North American" content?

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

 

[Tigger]

I never know which trump stories are cutting through the noise to general notice but this one stood up and waved a flag at my attention:

Trump Claims Nazis Treated Jewish Prisoners With “Love”

“I said to them, was there any sign of love?”
“Did the, Hamas, show any signs of like, help? Or liking you? Did they wink? Did they give you a piece of bread extra? Did they give you a meal on the side? … Like, you know, what happened in Germany?”
“People would try and help people that were in unbelievable distress,” the president went on, suggesting that the Nazis were known for their generosity.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

I never know which trump stories are cutting through the noise to general notice but this one stood up and waved a flag at my attention:

Trump Claims Nazis Treated Jewish Prisoners With “Love”

This photo is way better to fully embrace and appreciate the new fresh American style which oozes now from the Oval Office to the world...

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Freedom for American showers! Trump has changed the federal definition of shower head, ending the Obama-Biden war on water pressure!

Trump has complained for years about inadequate water pressure in American showers, sinks and toilets, and has blamed federal water-conservation standards for the problem.

“In my case, I like to take a nice shower to take care of my beautiful hair,” Trump said as he signed the executive order, which the White House said would apply to multiple household appliances, including toilets and sinks. “I have to stand under the shower for 15 minutes until it gets wet. It comes out drip, drip, drip. It’s ridiculous.”

The White House said in a statement on the executive order: “By restoring shower freedom, President Trump is following through on his commitment to dismantle unnecessary regulations and put Americans first.”

Some appliance experts have found Trump’s continued focus on American water pressure notable.

“It was very striking that the White House memo included toilets and shower heads as a presidential priority. It really was something,” Andrew deLaski, executive director at the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, told the Guardian in January. “But I think Donald Trump’s concerns are somewhat out of date, to tell you the truth.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/09/trump-water-pressure-executive-order

 

[Free]

“I have to stand under the shower for 15 minutes until it gets wet. It comes out drip, drip, drip. It’s ridiculous.”

Has he tried it without an umbrella?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Donald Trump meets an opponent he can’t face down: the bond market

On the day US borrowing costs rose above those of Greece, the president agreed to pause tariffs on everyone bar China but uncertainty is here to stay

www.thetimes.com

Evernote Link

 

[Innula Zenovka]

How Trump is misusing emergency powers in his tariffs policy

10th April 2025 A good way to commentate is to start with a puzzle: something that does not make sense – or at least does not make sense at first glance. And one puzzle about the tariff polic…

davidallengreen.com

Excellent article by David Allen Green on how Trump is abusing his powers and getting away with it.

Basically, the US constitution gives Congress, not the President, the power to regulate imports and exports, which included setting tariffs.

Legislation passed in 1977 gives the President the power to regulate them in the event of an emergency that presents an "unusual and extraordinary threat ."

Trump's decree of April 2nd, "Liberation Day," details how, in Trump's opinion, structural defects in the system of international trade "constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States".

As David Allen-Green comments,

The rest of the decree (which should be read in full) sets out how this “threat” has come about since 1945 – indeed the decree contains a potted (if one-sided) history of post-war international trade.

In summary the deficits are structural and they have been in place a long time.

In other words: the deficits are usual and ordinary.

And yet, yesterday Trump suspended most of the tariffs he had announced the previous week:

Something which was necessary because of “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States” suddenly became unnecessary.

What Trump described in his decree as “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States” had not itself changed – though stock and other market conditions certainly had changed.

Yet suddenly the most onerous of the emergency measures to be rushed into place were not needed.

The most obvious explanation is that what he described as “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States” was not an unusual and extraordinary threat at all.

As Allen-Green comments

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Some appliance experts have found Trump’s continued focus on American water pressure notable.

“It was very striking that the White House memo included toilets and shower heads as a presidential priority. It really was something,” Andrew deLaski, executive director at the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, told the Guardian in January. “But I think Donald Trump’s concerns are somewhat out of date, to tell you the truth.”

My heart goes out to those poor sods on the domestic staff at Mar A Lago and the White House who have to deal with it every time Trump throws a tantrum because he still can't get the hang of these new-fangled dual-flush toilets.

 

[Free]

Donald Trump meets an opponent he can’t face down: the bond market

On the day US borrowing costs rose above those of Greece, the president agreed to pause tariffs on everyone bar China but uncertainty is here to stay

www.thetimes.com

But but: Trump: The bond market now is beautiful

The "Trump put" wasn't dead, it was just resting

If markets learned one thing from the last week's White House tariff drama, it was that President Trump is still paying attention.

Why it matters: The "Trump put" that investors relied on in his first term — the notion that Trump would change policy if stocks or bonds had a bad reaction — looked like it might be dead in the second term. Until Wednesday.

What they're saying: In an impromptu news conference outside the White House, Trump was asked why he told the markets to "be cool" in a Truth Social post early Wednesday, only to then pause most tariffs hours later.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

But but: Trump: The bond market now is beautiful

The "Trump put" wasn't dead, it was just resting

Spooking the stock market is one thing. Spooking the bonds market, however, is something completely different, and when bond prices fall and yields spike, governments have to change direction very quickly or face catastrophic consequences.

 

[Free]

Spooking the stock market is one thing. Spooking the bonds market, however, is something completely different, and when bond prices fall and yields spike, governments have to change direction very quickly or face catastrophic consequences.

Someone got to Trump on that one.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Spooking the stock market is one thing. Spooking the bonds market, however, is something completely different, and when bond prices fall and yields spike, governments have to change direction very quickly or face catastrophic consequences.

Absolutely. It's easy to spook the stock market but my hope is that Trump finally alienated some powerful people who were previously supportive of him.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Link to Guardian article

One of the great advantages of living in a parliamentary democracy is that, after that debacle, her own party were able to replace Truss as PM in less than a month.

 

[Sid]

Absolutely. It's easy to spook the stock market but my hope is that Trump finally alienated some powerful people who were previously supportive of him.

I think the moment that handlers and the wealthy forces behind him will pull Trump from the stage comes closer and closer.
"Is there a doctor in the house to declare this man unfit for office?"

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I think the moment that handlers and the wealthy forces behind him will pull Trump from the stage comes closer and closer.
"Is there a doctor in the house to declare this man unfit for office?"

The problem is that if Trump doesn't want to go, it would require a two-thirds majority of both the US Senate and House of Representatives to agree with the doctor.

 

[Free]

Someone got to Trump on that one.

Trump Boasts About Strong-Arming Trump Into Pausing Tariffs

WASHINGTON—Bragging that he had forced the world leader into “total submission,” President Donald Trump boasted to reporters Thursday that he had strong-armed President Donald Trump into pausing his latest round of tariffs. “I said to him, ‘Donald, these reciprocal tariffs have got to go,’ and...

theonion.com

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The Economist explains why scaring the bonds market is such serious business.

America’s financial system came close to the brink

Chaotic markets threatened to trigger a full-blown crisis

www.economist.com

Evernote Link