The Wall Street Journal is running editorials opposing Trump’s tariffs, and they aren’t behind paywalls. A couple of days ago I linked to The Embarrassing Truth About Tariffs. This one focuses on who is really paying the tariffs (U.S. consumers) and that “manufacturing boom Mr. Trump promised hasn’t appeared, as manufacturing jobs are down over the last year.”
The most recent one is headlined Why Tariffs Aren’t Shrinking the U.S. Trade Deficit. Overall, U,S, trade deficits remain about where they were when Trump took office in 2025. .Trump’s obsession with trade deficits was always a tad pathological. Trump is obsessed with the idea that if a nation sells more stuff to us than it buys from us, we are being “ripped off.” You might remember that when he announced his “liberation day” tariffs he made a point of making them “reciprocal,” meaning (to Trump) that the tariff rate was based on the deficit between the U.S. and other countries, including islands inhabited entirely by penguins. Freeloaders, those penguins.
But my larger point here is that this is the bleeping Wall Street Journal. Which makes me think that there are a lot of business leaders and Very Monied People who are getting over Trump, and the WSJ editorial board is reflecting that. Yeah, he cut their taxes, but it’s turning out that in other ways he’s more trouble than he’s worth.
Oh, and the Dow dropped 800 points today.
The State of the Union is tomorrow night. I don’t intend to watch. It’s less painful to follow along reading the written updates in the New York Times and other news sources. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump goes off the rails, big time. It could be epic.
My hope is that Tubby's minions will pump him so full of caffeine/cocaine/Adderal (in an attempt to keep him awake/coherent) that his heart explodes live on TV.
Of course, then we'd end up with President Couchhumper…
We will see if a critical mass of true believers (Eric Hoffer) remains to prevent a total collapse at the State of the Union spectacle and beyond. The shade and the quantity of the lipstick will need to be nearly perfect to validate the illusion. I'm not sure that level of talent can be mustered. Will he pull a rabbit out of the hat or bring the wrong hat again. We will see.
It could take a few days to evaluate, and for MTG and others to respond.
The message isn't to Trump – it's to Congress. THEY are supposed to make decisions on raising revenues and designating spending. This whole economic mess with tariffs and our relationships with trading partners is supposed to be professionally managed – economists, people with the State Dept.
My read of the message is: take control away from the nitwit. Will Congress listen? No, and yes. Before midterms, I predict no. Depending on how badly the Republicans get creamed in November, they will then start to listen. They will have tuned out the WH fanatics. Oddly, human nature dictates that, since the GOP in DC is not at fault for the debacle, the blame will fall on the orangeman, who will be saying the GOP only lost because he wasn't on the ballot.
The play from there is predictable – a delegation from Congress, maybe the Senate, will attempt to impress upon Dear Leader that "we"(Republicans) have to change course. I think Trump will let them leave with their heads on their shoulders. At that point, impeachment becomes a real possibility.
This is a off topic but I had to share with someone… and remember that the orange man has not been exonerated as a sex pest and the stench of the Epstein scandal will hang in the air of his moronic ramblings at the SotU rally like he dropped a duce in his depends.
We had a cabin in Santa Fe county in the 90s and since we liked to hike and knew the local cowboys, we got the inside scoop on the cool, off-the-beaten-path locations. I was watching a news story on Zorro Ranch and it hit me that one of the coolest places that I had ever been to was a place we (allegedly) used to sneak on to was ON ZORRO RANCH! It was the coolest place,… a three mile long cuesta (hog back) that had tens of thousands of native pictographs (I'm not exaggerating) that dated from pre-columbian, to colonial period, to cowboy days and some contemporary graffiti. If you are a billionaire you can own and fence off significant archeological sites that should be studied and open to the public. But, again, this is how the Epstein Class is screwing us all because on all the oligarch's land holdings across the US of A there are probably thousands of cultural and natural sites that should be overseen by the public but that they can loot and defile as they please. Yes, a simile.
If you ever are in NM, go south of Santa Fe on NM 41 to the big set of three cuestas (north of this placemarker in my link below) and you might be able to see some of the rock art from the road.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Zorro+Ranch+Rd,+New+Mexico/@35.2763357,-105.9898973,12061m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x8718e61b7e885705:0x58eb6d3019cc335!8m2!3d35.2679558!4d-105.9642884!16s%2Fg%2F1tz76fhf?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDIxOC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
In a few hours, Orangeman will speak to (I predict) mostly Republican members of Congress and the USSC. That's assuming most Democrats boycott or walk out during the address. And it's assuming the members of the High Court opt to show up for his insults.
President Idiot will have exactly the audience he wants to deliver the message he's dying to puke at them. HE is the only important branch of government. The Constitution itself must yield to his will. Anyone who resists him will be punished.
There's an episode of TNG where a judge is sent to investigate possible sabotage of the Enterprise and searches for 'enemies' on a racial basis, going after anyone with Romulan ancestry. Most are cheering her ethnic cleansing until she goes after Captain Piccard for questioning her methods and motives. Picard becomes the subject of an inquiry, and he quotes an esteemed jurist of the time on rights. The quote drives the judge nuts and her vitriolic reply exposes her madness.
Such a moment is possible tonight. Cracks in the facade of absolute power have shown. The decision of the High Court is a threat the Madman in Chief should ignore, but can't. GOP members of the House voting with Democrats against tariffs thrreaten his dominance of the GOP party, facing in the next election the political equivalent of Napolitan's march into Russia that decimated the French Army. The GOP knows it now but they can't stop ot or oppose it until after the defeat.
No, I won't watch more than clips of the speech. Emotionally, I can't stomach the blasphemy he speaks. I'm a worshipper at the Temple of Democracy. The true church was sullied long before Orangeman showed up to give voice to the devil. The "dream" of the founders was not pure, but much of what made up the original Constitution IS pure, if we have the courage to live it. What's flawed can be ammended – the founders saw fit to include mutiple avenues for that.
I've been saying for years that the GOP's Big Donors (and the Think Tank network they fund) have never liked Trump, since he stole "their" base and made a laughingstock of *all* of their empty-suit Party Hacks in the 2016 GOP primary. They spent their money in down-ballot (House, Senate, & State-level) races that year, leaving Trump to fund his campaign via small donors (and some of his usual pyramid-scheme tricks).
They were as amazed as everyone else when Trump beat HRC, and only slightly less appalled. They still controlled Congress (so they got their Tax Cut Bill), but Trump's demand for personal loyalty meant they weren't able to control the Federal Bureaucracy (yay!?).
In 2020, GOP Big Donors again put their money into the down-ballot races (with more exceptions this time), hoping that Trump would just go away… but he didn't.
By 2024, they adjusted to the new reality. Heritage & their other Think Tanks hired a bunch of Trump cronies, and put their names (and some of their pet policies) at the top of Project 2025, hoping to lure Trump on board. That kinda worked, but Trump is both too nutty and too shrewd (and mostly too egotistical) to be a dependable puppet.
And Trump's dizzy Tariffs are a prime example of this – Wall Street (and most other GOP power-centers) are strongly opposed to them, but they don't want to offend Trump or his Mob, so they got the SC to deal with it.