The Trump Presidency, Season 2

[Noodles]

I really don't want a crashed economy; but it has been delightful to see how many of the die hard free-marketers, who always vote Republican, scratching their heads about Trump's dumbass trade war.

I used to avoid those dumbasses in Wall Street Bets on Reddit but they have been really entertaining lately. And they hate all of this.

 

[Free]

Not that we pay attention to the WP anymore, but...

They're unserious, incompetent and at best couldn't care less for the right and secure way to do things, but they work well together. Is that what's he putting forward as a good thing? We'd be better off with the Keystone Cops.

Note: Thiessen is one of the assholes who believed Obama was damning the U.S. by not maintaining the previous admin's torture policies. Nice guy.

 

[Sid]

Not that we pay attention to the WP anymore, but...

They're unserious, incompetent and at best couldn't care less for the right and secure way to do things, but they work well together. Is that what's he putting forward as a good thing? We'd be better off with the Keystone Cops.

Note: Thiessen is one of the assholes who believed Obama was damning the U.S. by not maintaining the previous admin's torture policies. Nice guy.

Let's be positive here: At least they wear their ties correctly.

 

[Free]

Let's be positive here: At least they wear their ties correctly.

You don't know that. They could be completely nude when they join their Signal chats. Or worse...

 

[Noodles]

Not that we pay attention to the WP anymore, but...

They're unserious, incompetent and at best couldn't care less for the right and secure way to do things, but they work well together. Is that what's he putting forward as a good thing? We'd be better off with the Keystone Cops.

Note: Thiessen is one of the assholes who believed Obama was damning the U.S. by not maintaining the previous admin's torture policies. Nice guy.

This is the one where the bombed that hotel or apartment building wasn't it? We got an inside look at a group of assholes murdering a bunch of collateral damage civilians is what we got.

Welcome to corporate decision making.

It's like that line in Fight Club about how they don't dona recall if the cost a settlement for deaths is less than the cost to do the recall.

Murder planning right in the open and nothing happens.

 

[Free]

I sure hope some part of the government infrastructure is allowed to work as intended. But honestly, I'm not that hopeful.

Pentagon watchdog launches probe of Hegseth Signal messages

The acting Inspector General of the Defense Department will review Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s use of Signal in a group chat with other key national security officials to discuss military strikes against the Houthis in Yemen last month, the IG’s office announced on Thursday.

In a letter to Hegseth, Acting Inspector General Steven Stebbins wrote that the objective of the IG’s “evaluation” is to determine whether Hegseth and other Pentagon personnel “complied with DoD policies and procedures for the use of a commercial messaging application for official business.”

The probe will also examine whether Hegseth complied with classification and records retention requirements, the letter says. The review will take place both in Washington, DC and at US Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, it adds.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

President Trump’s mindless tariffs will cause economic havoc

But the rest of the world can limit the damage

www.economist.com

Evernote Link

 

[Free]

President Trump’s mindless tariffs will cause economic havoc

But the rest of the world can limit the damage

www.economist.com

Not all that difficult a prognostication.

 

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

President Trump’s mindless tariffs will cause economic havoc

But the rest of the world can limit the damage

www.economist.com

Evernote Link

Look at Captain Obvious at the Economist there.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

President Trump’s mindless tariffs will cause economic havoc

But the rest of the world can limit the damage

www.economist.com

Evernote Link

If anything, this understates it's case... his plan to wreck the trading relationships that helped make us the wealthiest nation ever is so dumb, it comes off as malicious. He's TRYING to crash our economy for unknown reasons we can only speculate about. ...or he's just really insane.

It's a common myth that economic theory justifies a total laissez faire economy but it does do a good job of explaining why trade is (mostly) good. One economist said "the principle of comparative advantage is the only consequence of economic theory that is neither trivial or false." There are extreme cases where tariffs or other restrictions on trade make sense, but this isn't it.

I know many slightly more rational republicans are panicking and Putin is probably pleased as punch with his useful idiot.

 

[Casey Pelous]

... He's TRYING to crash our economy for unknown reasons we can only speculate about. ...or he's just really insane.

For the past decade I have seen nothing that would rule out the possibility of "both."

 

[Beebo Brink]

 

[Noodles]

If anything, this understates it's case... his plan to wreck the trading relationships that helped make us the wealthiest nation ever is so dumb, it comes off as malicious. He's TRYING to crash our economy for unknown reasons we can only speculate about. ...or he's just really insane.

It feels like only a handful of likely reasons, but who knows which, or if its a combo deal.

1 - Putin wants it and Trump is Putin's bitch, probably through debt or something.

2 - He and his asshole friends want to buy everything up like happens every crash.

3 - its entirely just revenge for all the "witch hunts" he has been subjected to over his asshole criminal lifestyle finally catching up to him.

4 - He is insane.

 

[Noodles]

Pointless side note, I support McDonald Island because Penguins are my favorite animal.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Trump fired the NSA and cyber command chief General Timothy Haugh, because far right influencer Laura Loomer advised him to do so.

In the meeting, Loomer, a fervent Trump supporter, pressed for the dismissals of a number of officials besides Haugh and Noble — in particular, National Security Council staff whose views she saw as disloyal to the president.

At least five key National Security Council aides were fired Thursday.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/04/03/nsa-director-fired-tim-haugh/

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Some disparate thoughts on the second day of the financial apocalypse

A few scattered opinions as the world falls down around us...

iandunt.substack.com

Markets have become our only remaining objective reality. We're seeing the same thing happen today that we saw during the Liz Truss debacle, an edifice of nonsense brought down by the brute reality of scrolling financial ticker tapes on news channels. In the lead up to this moment, populists were able to say all sorts of nonsense and a pliable news media assisted them. Perhaps the people being sent to prisons in Latin America were gang members. Perhaps he had a point about Russia and Nato. Perhaps Canada did have a fentanyl problem. On and on it went: a world where up is down and black is white. In the UK we'd dealt with years of this, through the Brexit process right into the Truss administration.

But then the economy tanks and we're suddenly back in objective reality. The most telling image yesterday was of the disastrous stock market numbers emblazoned on Fox News as they spoke to guests. Even there, in Trump's echo chamber news barricade, there was no escaping from the reality of what was happening. The market is the last bastion of commonly-accepted truth, which all sides accept as empirically real.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

A $2,300 Apple iPhone? Trump tariffs could make that happen. | Reuters

Evernote Link

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

California's governor Newsom asks the world to exempt his state from retaliatory tarrifs.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

California's governor Newsom asks the world to exempt his state from retaliatory tarrifs.

ehhhhh... I get why he'd want to do this, but it's not realistic he'd have a special deal just for CA. We're all going down with this ship!!

 

[Cindy Claveau]