He's Basically Useless

 

Trump posted the above impotent whinge on his dreadful Truth Social account, and I suppose someone may have let Putin know about it and if they did, I am sure of one thing. 

Putin would have laughed his ass off.  It's pathetic. It reeks of frustration:

The exchange shined a light on a rising sense of exasperation among the president and his advisers at his inability to mount a successful pressure campaign against Putin to end the war. Trump bristled at a reporter’s suggestion that he had not applied pressure to the Russian leader.

“You don’t know what pressure I’m putting on Russia,” Trump snapped. “We’re putting a lot of pressure on Russia, and Russia knows that.”

Trump then argued that “it takes two to tango, and you have to have Ukraine want to make a deal, too.”

Moscow, he said, has already made a substantial concession by not “taking the whole country.”

“Stopping the war,” he said, is a “pretty big concession.”

Part of Trump's frustration may well be not knowing exactly what a "concession" is. It's possible he only recently abandoned that idea that it meant someone was selling hot dogs and sodas during the negotiations. When Trump says "You don't know what pressure I'm putting on Russia," though, I believe that part--it's just that Russia doesn't seem to be aware of it either. That's why THIS IS NOT WORKING.

The Future's So Dark, I Gotta Wear Shades

 

Look, I have to retire some time, eventually, and I'm in my 50's, so I'm not grave-dancing over here about what tomorrow is going to bring. The whole election, despite what people were saying about Trump being a felon and a sex-pest and a danger to democracy had also an undercurrent of "This is a whole damn pudding-brained sociopath who will set the country on fire for giggles," but you what? Bygones. Let's just say some people out there chalked all of that up to Trump Derangement Syndrome and didn't want to believe the motherfucker was crazy.

But here's the SOB now:

Trump: "I spoke to a lot of leaders -- European, Asian, from all over the world. They are dying to make a deal, but I said 'we're not gonna have deficits with your country' ... to me a deficit is a loss. We're gonna have surpluses or at worst we're gonna be breaking even." pic.twitter.com/xnW7jb0u3R

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 6, 2025

Is everyone starting to get it? 

The financial deficits he's talking about is just a trade deficit.  We have a trade deficit with Madagascar. They sell basically vanilla. We have bakeries and ice cream factories and whatnot. They have people who are too poor to buy US goods. That's a trade deficit. Botswana sells diamonds. Same deal--we have jewelers and people buy engagement rings and so forth. They don't have the kind of incomes to be buying a lot of US goods. 

It just is what it is. Not everyone is going to be giving us a trade surplus--to think it can be so is just crazy and what you get when you don't know geography, or how anything but particularly trade works--you trade for shit you can't make or get easily. If I'm a pumpkin farmer, I don't want someone else's pumpkins--I want something I don't have. How is this hard to get? 

This is not Normal

 

How do you confront a man who has done a lot of damage in a very short period of time, and promises to get up in front of the American people and lie about everything? Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D., NM) chose to hold a simple sign: "This is not normal."  (It was snatched from her by Republican Rep. Lance Gooden.)

What the folks who attended or tuned into this speech beheld was a long rally speech--not really like a State of the Union speech at all. Trump called out the head of DOGE, Elon Musk (who isn't supposed to BE the head of DOGE, allegedly, for some sort of legal reason). He dwelled on the ideas of immigrant crime and trans people in sports for some reason. (Divisiveness. Feeding the bigotry beast.)

There will obviously need to be heroic fact-checking. This is a speech where Trump blamed Biden for the economy that he has actually contracted, threatening higher prices and a recession. Economists were not predicting a recession with Biden's policies--only with what Trump has been doing so far. 

But we aren't new to this game. Trump lies. Trump blames other people. Trump comes up with proposals that might just be a puppet show in a madhouse. We are in a trade war with our North American neighbors. Trump has openly sided with Russia in the Russo-Ukrainian war. 

This is, in fact, not normal. A ketamine-fueled megalomaniac with poor sleep habits is Peter-Panning his crazy ass through our government with his Lost Boys, looking to move fast and break stuff--not really understanding what he's breaking, just hoping to get the contracts to fix whatever it is. Daddy Ourbucks rose for a little applause during the speech. 

One could almost wonder why he didn't give speech himself. Shy? 

Shart of the Deal 2: The Takers

 

This blog (me, Vixen!) understands that Trump thinks of himself as the Deal-maker, and his mishpocha love that for him. We discussed The Shart of the Deal a minute ago, and it's holding up. He imposes a threat, and will accept any terms that make him look like he got his "deliverables". He just got the Mexican president to send 10,000 troops to the border that were going anyway. He got Justin Trudeau to agree to the same kind of commitment he was already making. 

It's ok--just so long as Trump gets to take credit for something, even if it was nothing he actually accomplished (other than demonstrating to our allies that his government is duplicitous and not to be trusted, ruining our relationship in a completely shartastic way!)  And the 30-day pause probably just means we get another round of Trump drama. 

But the thing to recognize is Trump didn't do anything other than wreck our allies' faith in us Just like him patting himself on the back for the flow of the water (which is idiotic) into lakebeds that have nothing to do with the already-contained LA fires. It's bullshit--but he's a tv president for dipshits who watch too much tv. 

Which brings me to Elon Musk--his avatar Vizier and the shadow-president. 

Trump takes credit. I don't know what Musk is taking--but it's a whole lot, because he's rooting through our servers, gathering our information, and I have no earthly idea what all he means to do with it. But he is using boys young enough to be his sons to do it. 

Egads, I Hate JD Vance.

 

Of all the trifling twats that ever twatted triflingly, JD Vance feels like he might be both the most trifling and twattiest. The adoption of Trump's victimization fetish that the US has been "taken advantage of" is so uniquely lame and fucked up. Did Lady Liberty get railed by the big old Lumberjack? How sway? 

Trump himself conflated the Canadian trade deficit thing with our actual US debt, which this asshole put 8 trillion American dollars on. As a member of the party that DOES NOT swan about preaching "fiscal responsibility" while racking up losses by granting tax cuts to the rich at every opportunity, um. 

Fuck you. Fuck you from the soles of your shitty unspurred feet to the crown of your molting head. And what I say for Trump goes ditto (megadittoes. even!) for his mini-me. 

JD Vance tells stories. That is to say, more appropriately, he lies, and he knows and accepts that he lies. 

Let's know and accept that. too. And acknowledge how unacceptable that behavior is. 

Boos for the US

Trump's tariffs are an incredible unforced error nationally on our part, because we never had that level of animosity with our neighbor to the north before (I guess since the war of 1812). I don't know that Trump understands what Candian energy means for New England states in winter, or to what degree imposing these tariffs makes him the asshole, but we are going to readily see the problem in action because our good allies are going to reciprocate--because why shouldn't they? 

Trump doesn't understand water conservation in California and probably thinks BC needs to turn a spigot somewhere so I'm not going to try to parse his wrong-headed grievances. The last North American Trade agreement was the USMCA which was a Trump Administration coup! (As far as successful Trump Administration coups go!) and now he wants to say it's all been problematic? 

When Russia Has Shown You Who They Are

 

All the videos of the Azerbaijan Airlines flight showing the damage show holes in the wreckage have entry holes on the port side and exit holes on the starboard side, likely with a slight angle from below. pic.twitter.com/z4NxEapLWd

— Oliver Alexander (@OAlexanderDK) December 25, 2024

Russia shot down that plane just like they shot down MH17 in 2014 and just like they shot down Korean flight 007 41 years ago. Soviet or Putin, we have a structure of murderousness and lying; and taking no responsibility for the loss of many human lives. 

Russia needs disinformation to exist, and this is why I deplore the idea that the structure for seeking out disinformation is being dismantled in the name of "free speech." Democracy can only exist with a well-informed public, yet US conservatives like the idea of a disinformed public softened up by foreign powers because they have so far benefitted from it. 

If I hadn't in the last 40 years of my political awareness seen a brilliant reason to not support the GOP ever--holy shit! Watergate, Iran/Contra and the yellow cake /WMD's lies are like tiddlers in comparison to any and every pretense that Russia is a reasonable honest nation we can do business with. We are absurdly weakened by such a stance. 

What Are the Odds He Believes This?

 

Trump: A tariff is a tax on a foreign country. A lot of people like to say it’s a tax on us. No… It’s is a tax that doesn’t affect our country. pic.twitter.com/NNyNthZbKg

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 17, 2024

This isn't how tariffs work. People have been pointing out this is not how tariffs work. The benefits of tariffs are mixed. But if consumers are concerned about high prices, tariffs are not going to do anything about them. Economists say it would result in Americans paying more--it is a tax on us. Trump's concept of a trade war against foreign countries is just not how things in a global economy work. The answer--inflation. 

I'm not 100% Trump understands what his immigration policy would do to supply chains here in the US, and I'm relatively sure that if he hasn't got the tariffs thing right in his head, he definitely doesn't understand how devaluating the dollar is also terrible for consumers.

But you or I might be thinking about things from the point of view of people with "normal" incomes. We do things like work for a living or have a "fixed" income from a pension. We would actually feel those costs--the people who help set Trump's economic policy and the people who can afford Trump country club memberships would not. I don't think it matters whether Trump understands these policies, I think it's that he does not care and will say absolutely anything to be elected.

Trump on Steroids

 

Right now, Trump thinks he is the Lizard King, and can do anything. He's been on a Twitter roll that simply can't be anything to do with Dan Scavino or anyone else--it's all Trump.  He hasn't just come home to the White House, but has chosen to make weird, conflicting pronouncements whilst still operating as the President, like declaring that negotiations for COVID-19 economic relief are totally off on one hand, but agreeing with Fed Chairman Powell on the other hand that something must be done to prevent disaster, 

Although Trump has used Twitter to wreck the stock market with trash talk before, I don't even know if he did it intentionally this time. (By the by, did you know Trump's economic prowess in the trade war has resulted in an ever-widening trade deficit and man, he does not know how to fix that shit or even whether it is bad or should be fixed? Because those things are totally true.) 

He also declassified a bunch of Russia investigation information either several hours ago or a long time ago. (his sense of time might be a bit, um, unbounded.)Which might even include the redacted bits of the Mueller report, for all I know. I wonder which intelligence agency (he's mad at all of them) he's talking to. He's also in an online relationship with the Hoover Institute's Paul Sperry (sorry Melania--or is that congratulations?).

Anyway, Trump's insistence that he gets what COVID-19 is all about now (When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone; I cannot put my finger on it now. The child is grown. The dream is gone. I have become comfortably numb.) seems belied by basically everything he's been doing. And his doctors are not telling the truth and the White House hasn't been telling the truth, because we should understand Trump wasn't getting tested regularly for the virus, so we don't know exactly when he was infected, but what we can surmise is that yes, this guy is Donny Crappleseed and yes, he still doesn't understand prophylaxis. 

And he's presidenting under the influence of whatever cocktail the good docs at Walter Reed gave him, and now that he's "home", if rumors are true, whatever additions he might be able to get from "not so good doctors".  I've joked that we might not be able to tell the difference between regular Trump and Trump with special additives. It could behoove him then, to maybe interrupt his responsibilities/campaign until he makes any kind of sense, but let's face it--he never did! 

Also, Pence's Dr's note is awfully nice but I am glad he agreed to the plexiglass barrier. Not just because of COVID. But because having laid down with a dirty dog like Trump for so long, I fear he might have fleas. 

The Deliverable

HUGE HAPPENINGS last night: NEW TEXT MESSAGES show State officials leveraged the promise of a summit between Zelensky & Trump on Ukrainians' willingness to investigate the 2016 U.S. election & Biden

"potus really wants the deliverable," 1 wrote. https://t.co/6s7yBaNTVN

— Rachael Bade (@rachaelmbade) October 4, 2019

Hm. I think "deliverable" is a pretty handy way of saying "quid pro quo", huh? So I take this exchange:

“As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign,” Taylor later texted Sondland on Sept. 9, complaining that the Trump administration’s decision to withhold congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine had already created a “nightmare scenario.”

“The president has been crystal clear no quid pro quo’s of any kind,” Sondland replied. “The president is trying to evaluate whether Ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency and reforms that president zelensky promised during his campaign I suggest we stop the back and forth by text.”

to more or less mean "We're not going to call this transactionalism a 'quid pro quo', and as long as we don't say the words or keep talking about it, we can still pretend it's all very legal and very cool."

But if you don't want to talk about how not cool it is, chances are good it's because you know it isn't. And there's the rub. What am I always saying? It looks bad because it is bad.

UPDATE: And it looks like some House Republicans knew there was a quid pro quo situation in effect regarding Ukraine aid as well.

UPDATE: It also looks like Trump offered silence regarding the Hong Kong protests (so much for love of democracy!) and brought up investigating Biden to China. So Trump's very public offer yesterday wasn't exactly new. Just very public.

Coming Back from Labor Day Weekend with a Boom!

There's definitely more where this screen-capped snippet of Trump Twitter-rantery is coming from, but this bit is awfully good vintage: misspelling the name of the mayor of London, who recently trashed Trump for golfing; pointing to knife crime in London just after another weekend in America that saw mass shootings, bringing up President Obama's yearly vacations to Hawaii (where the man, incidentally, is from) to counter Trump's near-weekly golf outings; referring to the DOJ IG report to once again maintain that the Mueller investigation was a witch hunt and falsely state that the Mueller Report exonerated him, when it most certainly did not. Could it be he knows his press is bad and he should feel bad? Is it that his trade war is starting to make him feel nervous?

Does he need reasons? I just know that when they start to pile up, he goes Boom! It's a very worrying feature.

Trump and the Trade War He Chose

The market futures were down this morning when China announced new tariffs against American goods including automobiles, and the market did start down, but it was going to be okay--because Jerome Powell gave a reassuring speech that he would responsibly keep the economy rolling along even if he didn't give a definite date about a rate cut. Good enough for investors; things were picking up. 

Not good enough for the toddler in the White House, who proceeded to Tweet disparagements at Powell, 

As usual, the Fed did NOTHING! It is incredible that they can “speak” without knowing or asking what I am doing, which will be announced shortly. We have a very strong dollar and a very weak Fed. I will work “brilliantly” with both, and the U.S. will do great...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2019

and included a useless demand for US businesses to pull out of China and delivery carriers (private companies!) to search for fentanyl in Chinese-based shipments. (This isn't how anything works.)

And swoosh! the markets were off to a downhill slalom. Because nothing gives a sense of economic security like President Queeg blowing up. Of course, because he's not just awful, but nasty, he blamed the slide on an unlikely source:

The Dow is down 573 points perhaps on the news that Representative Seth Moulton, whoever that may be, has dropped out of the 2020 Presidential Race!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2019

which might have been read as an attempt at humor that Moulton did not deserve and that Trump was inappropriate at hell to go for at that time (the market kept falling), and then after the close of bell, he announces his get-back at China:

So much for Christmas! 

None of this seems particularly strategic at all, and it isn't. China announced the tariffs just when Trump would particularly be spooked by them, and he behaved like a spooked individual. His retaliation might show "strength" but the joke that China's tariffs are "(politically motivated)" is just dumb--what is all of his "chosen" talk about, if not politics? He's not delusional (well, he is, but this part is political), he's chalking up potential losses to rounds of a long war in which he wants us to believe we will ultimately prevail if he remains at the helm. But at the same time, his Tweets reveal insecurity and weakness. He is more answerable to public opinion than Xi, and his missteps have already demonstrated that he doesn't understand how any of this works. We may have permanently lost soybean sales in China. The US manufacturing sector has already begun to contract, and this latest round of tariffs aims right at it. This will ultimately effect profits, and jobs (usually a lagging recession indicator anyway). 

Trump was chosen by the electoral college. He chose this trade war, and is doing it badly.

Crazy Inverted Yield Curve!

I am not an economist and I don't try to play one on the blog, but yesterday's stock market results in response to a dip on the bond market are worrisome to me, not because I especially know what that means for the economy (former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen says it might not even mean a recession, and she would know a whole lot more than I do), but because I have a read on how the current president deals with things he doesn't know how to handle, and it's not great:

I don't think this problem is going to be fixed by yelling on Twitter--but the man can't help himself. 

What I see is that Trump didn't learn from the last crash and deregulated the financial industry, taking off brakes that were put in place to prevent Bad Things from happening again, and his "trade war" scheme hasn't really been an all-around success for the economy. (He has, between the lines, almost admitted that the US consumer actually pays the tariffs on imported goods with his recent delay of the next round as a "Christmas present.") His goal to shrink the trade deficit has not worked. 

And as for ways we chip our way out of a recession, he's already got us in massive deficit spending. Also, he has deepened the polarization in Congress with antogonism. If things go bad, I simply don't see him as the guy to help make anything better.

Catapulting the Propaganda

Trump has Tweets again:

He still isn't actually saying that American consumers will be paying the tariffs, and his Tweets make no actual sense, but then, neither do his advisers.

Simply rest assured, sacrifices must be made in a trade war, but Trump still believes they "easy to win".

UPDATE:  Holy shit, he actually "believes" his bullshit.

A former Trump aide to @jonathanvswan: There’s little hope in trying to convince the president that China does not, in fact, pay the tariffs, because Trump’s belief in them is “like theology.” https://t.co/9EO5g4F37i pic.twitter.com/nhFSSd4K7k

— Megan Cassella (@mmcassella) May 14, 2019

We are Paying for the Wall

So, I guess I could try to leap on every stupid position the "Gish Gallop" Trump Administration is trying on--or, to keep myself actually sane, I could just address the biggest issue I can seize on at the moment, and here's one:  Despite claims that Mexico would pay for the entirely signifying wall Trump wants to put up, US Americans are going to pay for it. Via Sean "The Forehead" Spicer, the idea has been floated that Mexico could be made to pay via a 20% tariff on goods coming into the US from Mexico--

To be paid by? The American consumer, which would mean we are still paying for Donald Trump's signifying-ass wall! Whee doggies! That there is some rational approach to immigration and trade--alienate your neighbor and ally, and drive up prices for your own consumers. That's so damn dumb I'm glad it didn't come from Trump's mouth directly (but from "The Spicer Must Flow!")--that we know of--but both the Wall and protectionist schemes were both verbalized by Trump from the campaign pulpit, so I have to wonder if he thinks this is actually sound economics at all? Pay for the wall by obliquely shading Mexico, but in actual fact, levying the cost on the US taxpayer?

Cynical genius if you could keep US citizens from catching on that this is what is going on, right?  But what if it was patently stupid? As in, a president just promised to pay for a $15 - 25 billion not -necessarily needful project by levying a tax on goods--against most free trade prescriptions, that is to be paid by a) US consumers or, b) be obviated by owners of Mexican factories relenting and making a fraction of their goods in the US for sale without tariff--creating some handfuls of jobs but by crikey definitely not paying for any damn wall.

I think we are paying for it regardless.

A Challenger Arises

You can read the text of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's speech here. Clinton broke down point by point a handful of the very wrong things that Donald Trump has said with a brief explanation of why he's very wrong. There might be some areas where Clinton's perspective about policy and political reality differs from mine, but to see her define Trump as badly informed and of poor, not to say dangerously rash (OK--exactly to say that!) temperament was necessary.

This is something that no Republican primary challenger could have done, because in being knee-jerk opponents to anything President Obama has done, they at least had to support Trump's constant, if wrong, criticisms. Clinton, as part of Obama's circle, has an intimate knowledge of why some things were done, and not others. She understands, for example, the importance of the diplomacy of the Iran nuclear deal. She appreciates that trade is also a part of foreign policy. While her speech has been discussed as being short on the specifics about what we can expect from a Clinton foreign policy, I think the point is, that with or without specifics, there is no good that comes from the foreign policy of a badly-prepared media-mediocrity who is spurred by personal whims and a thirst for stirring public opinion.

And look how weak pitiful Trump's response to Clinton is:

In Crooked Hillary's telepromter speech yesterday, she made up things that I said or believe but have no basis in fact. Not honest!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 3, 2016

Sad! Because Clinton fired back:

You literally said all those things. https://t.co/6VX5AfR7gL https://t.co/U8LfWdPU7x

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 3, 2016