May be the second amendment is the civilized method of advanced democracies?
Maintaining it requires a yearly tribute of young lives but if that’s the cost of civilization and democracy…
(I think I prefer our current uncivilized tyranny…)
Time is fleeting.
Madness takes its toll.
Dead cat bounce is over.
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
I sincerely hope we have the opportunity to clean up the current mess.
AIUI, a veto override requires a two-thirds majority vote in both the House and Senate.
- In the House, there are currently 433 Representatives (220 Republican, 213 Democrat, 2 vacancies). A 2/3 vote, among current representatives, would mean 289 votes; assuming every Democrat supported an override, you’d need 76 Republicans (or a whole lot of them abstaining)
- In the Senate, it’s currently 53 Republican, 47 Democrat (including independents who caucus with the Democrats). A 2/3 vote would be 67, so again, assuming every Democrat votes to override, you would, indeed, need 20 from the GOP.
At this point, I think a Senate override is a lot more likely than a House override.
Per the SDMB rules, I am only considering legal options.
I was responding to @SenorBeef ‘s comment. Changing the law relating to tariffs may solve this particular problem but does not remove him from office.
The Dow Jones is soaring. Like, it just exploded in the last half hour. Bizarre.
I was going to post that, may be rumours of a backtrack on tariffs?
From the NYT: April 9, 2025, 1:28 p.m. ET1 minute ago
Deborah B. Solomon
President Trump on Wednesday said he would halt implementation of his reciprocal tariffs for the next 90 days, citing new talks with foreign nations on trade. But Trump said his break did not include China, announcing he would instead raise tariffs on its exports to 125 percent after Beijing announced a new round of retaliation.
It needs to be said once more:
How I’m seeing Trump’s general approach to governing, economics, and foreign policy:
Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.
Does it ever yield results? Sure. And a blowtorch can be an effective treatment for athlete’s foot.
From the AP:
Reminds me of a story I heard about a guy who would hit himself in the head with a hammer because it felt so good whenever he’d stop.
And it’s collapsing today.
The stock market is not a recession. But it’s sure a bad sign.
Just for the record: I hit my head once and it hurt. It was an accident, I did not do it on purpose, and I did not do it a second time. It still kept hurting for a while. I did not feel better afterwards, I felt worse.
Only much later I felt as good as before, not better. The idea with the hammer, specially done more than once, is something I strongly advise against.
Pro tip: If you really must try it, do it on somebody else’s head. You will see clearly that they do not feel good at all when you stop, nor show any gratitude when you do. Pro2 tip: do it to somebody you really don’t like and wear a mask in case the person survives.
I hope it is not necessary, but just in case: /s
I hit myself in the head with a hammer in 1930. I was already depressed, but it really made it worse, a Great Depression if you will. After that, I worked really hard with other countries to avoid anyone hitting themselves with a hammer, and I continue to oppose our current national goal of starting that up again.
So, on a positive note … Americans generally seem to be taking the economic news in stride:
Consumer sentiment plunged 11% this month to a preliminary reading of 50.8, the University of Michigan said in its latest survey released Friday, the second-lowest reading on records going back to 1952. April’s reading was lower than anything seen during the Great Recession.
Maybe he’d better put a pin in that whole “stop making the penny” thing. We may need those soon enough.
ETA: also, we are hearing that a bunch of Wall Street types believe either that a recession is likely or that we may be in one already. I’ve seen few state that publicly:
Doesn’t it take two quarters of negative growth for an “official” recession to be declared? My opinion is we’re like Wile E. Coyote who hasn’t yet realized he’s run past the cliff edge.
That’s the usual definition, yes. However, this article notes that the National Bureau of Economic Research, which is apparently the organization which is responsible for officially designating recessions, does not always follow that rule of thumb:
A recession is when your neighbor loses his job.
A depression is when you lose yours.
Tragedy is when I stub my toe. Comedy is when you fall down an open manhole and die.
Anyway, Larry Fink and other such captains of industry have no idea, really. They’re traders, not economists. I’m not saying we’re not in one, and weird things are happening in long bonds, and consumer sentiment is falling off a cliff, but I doubt the numbers will show anything for a few months.