Holy mother of god. Usually, Murdoch’s WSJ is very ahem pro GOP ahem, but even they can’t spin a trade war into a positive.
Legitimate construction companies can’t be counted on to slip Trump his cut.
This is the way all the “infrastructure projects” will go. Companies who aren’t registered, don’t return calls, have checkered histories featuring civil and criminal misconduct, etc.
Trump’s America. More corrupt than Somalia.
(2017 rankings of corruption by nation: https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_index_2017 Undoubtedly the 2018 rankings will reflect the infrastructure projects…)
Congress enacted laws that gave the President the power to impose tariffs for reasons of national security during times of war or during national emergencies. It’s a very broadly worded law that gives a President the power to impose any tariff because he gets to define the terms. (Nixon imposed a tariff in 1971 on the basis that the Korean War had never officially ended.)
However, the key factor is that Congress gave this power to the President. So it can take it back whenever it chooses to do so.
Nitpick: He dumped millions of dollars of stock in a company that was dependent on Steel. It would be stupid to sell stock in steel companies which would have suddenly gain competative advantage.
Huh?
I’m espousing a beautiful dream.
Thank you for the clarification. Asshole.
The good news (if any) is that it seems no paperwork of any kind has been filed as yet for this harebrained tariff plan. Or maybe Trump thinks that importers are just going to automatically pay the Department of Commerce or somebody 25% of their sales receipts just 'cause Trump said so.
It’s like when he “banned” transgenders in the military, but never actually ordered it, and the Pentegon ignored him
It doesn’t matter if anything he says ever happens. He’s just playing to his audience. He is creating a fantasy world for them. Smoke and mirrors. And if they expect some of this stuff to come about and it doesn’t, it will just be Dems’, Obama’s, Hillary’s, or someone else’s fault. He tried, but it was “rigged” against him. Boo-fucking-hoo.
That’s only part of it; every time he said something particularly loony it distracted the media and the rest of us like a bright shiny toy, and we woke up to something truly awful. He’s pulled that often enough that now he has to ramp up both the catastrophe and the possibility.
Ok, I want to circle back to this, because the concept Vlad is talking about is horrifying. Nuclear powered cruise missiles? Meaning, a thing that flies through the air flinging around wads of deadly neutrons in its wake (because a flying thing cannot afford the weight of reactor shielding), heating up the air with a naked core, spewing out reaction product (radioactive isotope dust) in its exhaust stream.
I mean, the USAF looked at this kind of idea during the Cold War and decided it was too insane even for them. So either Vlad is a silly fabulist or he has gone wack off the deep end.
Perhaps this insanity deserves its own thread?
At his next press conference, I want somebody to ask Trump if his proposed tariffs on steel and aluminum might affect strategic adamantium production.
Deep down, I feel like this is all bullshit, meant to goad the stupid, insecure man living in the White House. I don’t think there’s an inch of truth to it, but the idea is that Trump won’t let this go unmatched. And the USA will direct billions into ramping up our already-insane nuclear arsenal.
It’s trolling.
Sorry if I missed this in the thread, but I don’t see it. A group of Belorussians and Russians were arrested in the Thai seaside town of Pattaya on Monday for giving sex lessons. One of the ladies claims to have a lot of dirt on Trump and is willing to spill it in exchange for her freedom. Sounds like desperation, except she has been photographed in the past with two interesting persons – a Russian billionaire and a Russian deputy prime minister.
I like the Bangkok Post’s initial headline for the bust: Russian sex class stopped before climax.
Putin’s bigger RED button.
A further editorial on this: ‘Russiagate’ guppy caught in Pattaya sex class dragnet
Damn, wrong link. Let me try that again: ‘Russiagate’ guppy caught in Pattaya sex class dragnet.
There. That’s the right one.
My campaign did not collude in the nude with nasty Nastya Rybka. Can you believe this fake news? So sad! https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/28/asia/russia-model-thai-prison-trump-claims-intl/index.html
On PBS last night pundit Mark Shields described the Trump White House as “a civil war in a leper colony”. I’m not sure what that means, but I love it. (I suspect it’s a polite of way of saying “clusterfuck”.)
With the crazy number of departures from this Administration, couldn’t Section 4 of the 25th Amendment be invoked, not because of mental illness or incompetence, but simply because Trump cannot keep an effective executive branch team in place? When does it fall apart to the point that the president is simply “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office”?