Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Sure, Elon
I suppose I could be wrong, but I think the only question is: What kind of disaster will this be, specifically?
Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed that the company will have robotaxis on the streets of Austin, Texas, by the end of June.
In an interview with CNBC’s David Faber on Tuesday at the company’s headquarters in Austin, Musk said Tesla aims to bring its robotaxis to Los Angeles and San Francisco following the planned Austin debut.
Musk said a Tesla robotaxi service will start with about 10 vehicles in Austin, and rapidly expand to thousands of vehicles should the launch go well with no incidents.
Intervention
Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia has died at the age of 75 after a battle with esophageal cancer, his family said in a statement Wednesday.
“It is with immense sadness that we share that our devoted and loving father, husband, brother, friend, and public servant, Congressman Gerald E. Connolly, passed away peacefully at his home this morning surrounded by family,” read a statement posted on Connolly’s X account.
Connolly served as the top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform until late last month, when he said he would step down because his cancer had returned.
I Thought Elon Was Going To Fix This
FAA cuts 25% of flights at Newark airport after air traffic controller shortage and construction causes delays
Krapner
Tuesday, May 20, 2025
RIP George Wendt
Oldheads might remember that "Atrios" was a misremembered character name from that play (one couldn't easily google things back then). Antrios was the unseen artist who painted the white canvas that was the central source of friction for the 3 friends in that play. In this performance, it was Stacey (Marc) being enraged at David (Serge) for buying a ridiculous painting. George (Yvan) was the middle peacemaker.
Under the white clouds, snow is falling.
You can't see the white clouds, or the snow.
Or the cold, or the white glow of the earth.
A solitary man glides downhill on his skis.
The snow is falling.
It falls until the man disappears back into the
landscape.
My friend Serge, who's one of my oldest friends,
has bought a painting.
It's a canvas about five feet by four.
It represents a man who moves across a space
then disappears.
End Of The Elon Era
President Deals
Japan on Tuesday clarified its stance on U.S. tariffs, saying it wants all new levies put into place by the administration of President Donald Trump completely removed, confirming a hard-line position ahead of high-level negotiations that might be held later this week in Washington.
“As we have repeatedly stated, we find the series of U.S. tariff measures — including those on automobiles, auto parts, steel, aluminum, and reciprocal tariffs — extremely regrettable,” said Ryosei Akazawa, Japan’s chief tariff negotiator, at a news conference.
Business As Usual
The Department of Justice charged Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver with assaulting federal law enforcement during a chaotic melee that erupted outside of an ICE detention facility in her home state of New Jersey, acting US Attorney Alina Habba said Monday.I don't know how to convince DC consultant brains that "a party that won't even defend its own members is unlikely to defend 'me'" is a perfectly sensible conclusion for voters to come to.
You don't reach swing voters by finely calibrating your means testing regime, you reach them by not looking like fucking losers.
...The Democrats!
Stablecoin legislation overcame a procedural blockade in the US Senate, marking a major victory for the crypto industry after a group of Democrats dropped their opposition Monday.
Vote Krasner
Monday, May 19, 2025
Cruelty
Rest in Piss
Michael "every now and again the United States has to pick up a crappy little country and throw it against a wall just to prove we are serious" Ledeen died.
Trump vs. Trumpsim
Good For The Ancestral Homeland
My paternal line goes back to Romania. I had long assumed "Black" was just a "keep it simple" immigrant name, but it was actually a translation of the Romanian "Negru."
The headline election was Romania's presidential vote, with liberal Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan coming out the winner ahead of nationalist George Simion.
Here's how the NYT covered it a few days ago.
George Simion, a nationalist who appears well placed to win the presidential election in Romania on Sunday, has promised to “Make Romania Great Again” and described himself as a “candidate on the MAGA ticket” of President Trump.
After trouncing 10 other candidates to win the first round of the election, on May 4, Mr. Simion spoke on the “War Room” podcast hosted by Steve Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former adviser and champion of an international populist movement.
Romanian voters had “totally bashed the globalists,” Mr. Simion rejoiced, echoing the language of American supporters like Vice President JD Vance, who has rebuked Romania for canceling an earlier election that a far-right candidate looked set to win.
Liberation Delayed
WASHINGTON, May 18 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump will impose tariffs at the rate he threatened last month on trading partners that do not negotiate in "good faith" on deals, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in television interviews on Sunday.
The good faith negotiators are the suckers!
Sunday, May 18, 2025
Some Good News
Not optimistic, but better than nothing.
The Israeli Security Cabinet decided on Sunday to immediately resume the transfer of humanitarian aid to Gaza through existing channels until a new humanitarian aid mechanism starts working, according to two senior Israeli officials.
But I Still Have My Own Particular Freak Show Interests
Plenty of skull measurers manage to do just fine at our finest elite institutions.
That your colleagues thinking you're a racist dickhead, which is what this has always been about for the Freeze Peach crowd, is only an issue under the New York Times editorial board standard. This is the "lesser people and peoples are not allowed to criticize me" standard.
Must... Resist...
It does give me less to post about!
Is This Bad, Chat
At the Federal Aviation Administration, nearly a dozen top leaders, including the chief air traffic officer, are retiring early.
And at the Treasury Department, more than 200 experienced managers and highly skilled technical experts who help run the government’s financial systems chose to accept the Trump administration’s resignation offer earlier this year, according to a staffer and documents obtained by The Washington Post.
Across the federal government, a push for early retirement and voluntary separation is fueling a voluntary exodus of experienced, knowledgeable staffers unlike anything in living memory, according to interviews with 18 employees across 10 agencies and records reviewed by The Post. Other leaders with decades of service are being dismissed as the administration eliminates full offices or divisions at a time.
Saturday, May 17, 2025
Smart Business
This will get less ridicule than the correct lefty assertion that companies were taking advantage of supply chain problems by increasing prices more than their cost increases (which they were).
Teleoperation
Someone posted that Musk/Tesla had been discussing the need for teleoperation and at first I read it as "teleport." Masterful gambit, sir, $TSLA +378% as your fanboys believe you have invented the transporter.
But, no, it was teleoperation. We don't know how much remote intervention is used in existing automated taxis. Before they stopped operating, it was revealed that Cruise required it *a lot*. I don't know what Waymo is doing. In theory they are transparent, but the way they write this stuff up seems to have had the very heavy hand of lawyer involved.
Something journalists almost always get wrong about teleoperation is that it really can't help with safety. They're there to unstick a confused vehicle, not to prevent one from crashing at 35MPH.
Response lags, including cellular lags, means operators can't actually pilot the cars effectively. They can give them a nudge.
To back up the AI driving the vehicles, Tesla has also hired human staff to monitor and assist if they get into jams, taking full control if necessary. “As we iterate on the AI that powers them, we need the ability to access and control them remotely,” the company said in a posting for one such job. Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo, the leader in robotaxi tech, also uses remote operators to assist the vehicles by providing suggested solutions to tricky situations, but those people don’t actually drive them. Lag and latency in cellular networks make remote operations unsafe.
Safety is a real concern, especially with a company run by Elon, but as I've said all along, if they basically "work" then safety is less of a concern then people think, though that involves cars being cautious and annoying as hell to other drivers.
Freeze Peach
Not that I object to the piece at all, but I do wonder who, in the year of our Gritty 2025, needs to be told that the freeze speech crowd were always full of shit, and it was always just a backlash of elites to the notion that lesser people - and peoples - had any right to speak at all.
Flash-forward to 2025. The backlash against wokeness is the core of Trump’s second administration, and it’s being used to justify an assault on free speech unequaled since the McCarthy era. Trump has banned diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives throughout the federal government; has used the levers of the state to compel universities and other elite institutions to do the same; and has repeatedly jailed legal residents for engaging in what was once protected speech—usually speech in defense of the human rights of Palestinians. But as In These Times noted in April, just under a quarter of the Harper’s letter signatories have spoken up for the detained Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil and other victims of Trump’s unconstitutional crackdown. (Those who have include progressives like my fellow Nation columnists Jeet Heer, Katha Pollitt, and Zephyr Teachout.) For the large majority—notably including Weiss, a leading champion of Israel’s war on Gaza—Trump’s reign of terror has apparently been less objectionable than the irritating undergraduate and entry-level scolds of the 2010s.
If these erstwhile free speech champions were only guilty of hypocrisy—or bad faith—they would hardly be worth writing about now, but in many ways they helped lay the groundwork for Trump’s second term. Consider the column for which Bennet was ousted, which was among the inspirations for the Harper’s letter: a Republican senator, Tom Cotton, calling for the use of military force to violently suppress free assembly (in protest of lethal police violence, no less). Cotton recently described Khalil as “a pro-Hamas foreigner” and scoffed at the idea that he has any rights worth defending. From the start, the speech being defended was advocating the violent, top-down defense of existing social hierarchies—which in 2025 is not the least bit abstract.
People either have known this for a long time 😠 or they have know this for a long time 😜.
Friday, May 16, 2025
Hardline Hardball
They'll cave eventually, I'm sure.
President Donald Trump’s agenda has been thrown into chaos after a group of GOP hardliners blocked the bill in a key committee vote on Friday – dealing a major embarrassment to House Republican leaders and Trump himself.
Sure, Elon
In a statement on X the company said that someone had modified the AI bot’s system prompt, “which directed Grok to provide a specific response on a political topic.” That modification “violated xAI’s internal policies and core values,” and the company says it has “conducted a thorough investigation” and is implementing new measures to improve “transparency and reliability.”
Tougher Than The Rest
A handy illustration: Bruce Springsteen is not addressing "culture war" issues. A Fox News host calling him a pussy to his audience because he engaged in wrongthink is the "culture war."
DOGEd
Maybe there's nothing! But some updated numbers on staffers, for example, would tell a bit of the story! A reporter might be able to get some angry words from Hegseth, because what fun is it being the head of the Pentagon if you can't show you friends around in a helicopter?
WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - The Federal Aviation Administration said on Thursday it may ban the Pentagon from transporting government officials on routine missions around Reagan Washington National Airport, after a series of incidents involving passenger jets.
Thursday, May 15, 2025
And why is that
The urge to avert our gaze can be overpowering. But the cameramen who work for the BBC cannot turn away, and on Tuesday one of them became a casualty himself. For their safety we do not reveal the names of our colleagues in Gaza.
Big Beautiful Syria
The White House had issued no memorandum or directive to State or Treasury sanctions officials to prepare for the unwinding and didn’t alert them that the president’s announcement was imminent, one senior U.S. official told Reuters.
Classic move, sir.
This stuff is all above my pay grade, and you never have to hand it to him, but I do always lean towards "less meddling" with this stuff if that is indeed what is happening.
Wednesday, May 14, 2025
Playing The Hits
BiBi Should Have Offered A Gold Plane
Who Wants To Babysit Big Angry Jerk
Two more aides left John Fetterman’s office in recent weeks, the latest in a stream of staff exits amid the Pennsylvania senator’s shifting political persona and questions about his health.
Tuesday, May 13, 2025
Slaughtering The Sacred Cows
I’ve been toying with this idea of giving a talk sometime later this month that’s just called “Slaughtering Sacred Cows.” We as Democrats need to realize that while, certainly, people who voted for Donald Trump wanted change from their government, a lot of people actually don’t think the government is working for them. A lot of them want government to change. It’s just: we have a twentieth-century government, and it’s the twenty-first century.I pity the speechwriter having to fill in the Mad Libs form for that one. If you read through the interview you can tell that she can't. Critics of policies should at least be able to explain what they are, otherwise it's just vibeing rightwing ideology.
Slotkin's brain is made of pudding and Abundance talking points, she has negative charsima, and it's quite clear she has absolutely no idea what she is talking about. Just some phrases bouncing around her brain which she can't even explain. Big "am I the first person who thought of this?" energy.
Sure, Elon
My basic test for whether a general purpose humanoid robot would be useful, well, generally, is whether or not it can clear my table, load my dishwasher, and then put the dishes away. I don't mean that's the most important task I can imagine, just that if it can do tasks like that, it would fit the fantasy, and if it can't, it's pretty useless. And once you try to imagine one doing that, I think you can see how that's... well... hard.MUSK, in Riyadh: "My prediction, actually, for humanoid robots is that ultimately they will be tens of billions. I think everyone will want to have their personal robot. You can think of it like, as though you had your own personal C-3POor R2-D2. But even better. @cnbc.com $TSLA
— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) May 13, 2025 at 4:03 PM
He Can Do That?
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) said Tuesday that he will place holds on all political nominees to Justice Department posts until he receives “more answers” about Qatar’s potential gift of an airplane to the Trump administration.
Doesn't even seem like a kitchen table issue!
Opportunities
BEIJING — Xi Jinping didn’t even have to mention Donald Trump by name to get his point across.The Chinese president was giving the hard sell to a room full of senior Latin American leaders on Tuesday. He promoted his country’s stability and fundamental reasonableness, providing a clear contrast between him and his U.S. counterpart’s erratic trade war.
Sounds Bad
Attention is focused on Newark, but obviously they can't shift people from Philly, LaGuardia, or JFK either.
An exclusive report by the New York Post claims that on Monday evening between 18:30 to 21:30, flights out of Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) were handled by just one air traffic controller and a trainee. The report quotes a New York-based controller describing the situation as “pure insanity.” It also noted that an FAA spokesperson said that there were at least three controllers scheduled for each hour on Monday night but did not clarify how many of them were fully certified personnel.
The New York Times reported something similar, adding that four people familiar with the situation said that the number of fully certified controllers on duty to manage Newark’s air traffic was sometimes one or two. These figures are shocking because the target number of controllers for Newark to manage traffic in those hours is around 14-15.
I haven't seen any piece which gets into how many ATCs left due to Elon, whether his various sticks and carrots to get people to resign directly or just because he was such an asshole that they figured it was time to get out.
Assuming I haven't just missed it, I find its absence a bit weird!
Earlier it was claimed he tried to fire ATCs, and Duffy has since denied it actually happened, but actually fired doesn't include whether they just noped out due to the various pressures Elon was putting on them and the system generally.
ATCs aren't the only critical workers, of course, just the obvious ones.
I am skeptical of this...
Mr. Duffy said the F.A.A. had installed software updates on Friday to prevent future outages and plans infrastructure upgrades, including new fiber-optic cables connecting the airport and the facility in Philadelphia.
I mean the software update part. Also why use fiber when high latency satellites are much much worse?
One of the agencies deliberating a contract with Starlink burst into public debate last week: the Federal Aviation Administration, which for years has been looking to upgrade the infrastructure underlying its communications systems. The FAA awarded a $2.4 billion contract to Verizon in 2023, and although the contract is due to run for 15 years, Musk posted on X that he wants to pivot to a rival Starlink system. He said on X that Starlink was sending terminals at “no cost to the taxpayer.”
It’s not clear exactly when the FAA began considering the use of Starlink. Musk approved a shipment of 4,000 Starlink terminals to the FAA last month, Bloomberg News reported.
Are these in use? Is this part of the problem?
Monday, May 12, 2025
Line Go Up
Reset
Chinese tariffs on U.S. agricultural products, retaliation for the tariffs Trump issued over fentanyl, will also remain.
China’s Ministry of Commerce reiterated Monday that the meeting was an “important first step” to resolve differences. In a statement, Beijing urged the U.S. to “completely rectify the mistake of unilateral tariffs [and] work together to inject more certainty and stability into the global economy.”
Under the agreement, Beijing will also suspend or cancel some non-tariff retaliatory measures, like export restrictions and the blacklisting of dozens of U.S. companies.
Other tariffs imposed during President Donald Trump’s trade war with China during his first term — as well as a 20 percent duty issued in February over what the president said was China’s failure to stop fentanyl-related chemicals from reaching the United States — will remain in place. Chinese tariffs on U.S. agricultural products, retaliation for the tariffs Trump issued over fentanyl, will also remain.
It's tough to keep track, but unless I am missing something this means that the ag tariff is still 125% - an embargo, basically.
Stupid Pope
I'm not Catholic, so when I have observations about the Pope and the Church, I am not engaging in argument, I am merely discussing whether or not this powerful individual and his institution are moving in a more positive or negative direction, as defined by me.
It's funny to me when American Catholics, for whom papal infallibility, or something close to it, is a somewhat critical thing, just come out with, "nuh-uh, Pope."
It's Tariff Day, Again
As part of an agreement hammered out in Geneva over the weekend, the US will lower tariffs on Chinese goods to 30 per cent from 145 per cent and China will reduce duties on US imports to 10 per cent from 125 per cent.Masterful gambit, sir, not quite solving a problem you created in the first place, once again.
30% is still going to do a lot of damage. Low enough that more necessary goods will flow, but not much of the rest of it. Small businesses will be fucked.
Also, it's only for 90 days. The uncertainty is more important than the levels, at this point. It takes awhile to turn the boats back on.
Sunday, May 11, 2025
Last I Checked, The Dude Only Gets One Vote
When an attendee asked Gallego about a fundraiser he held with Marc Andreessen, a billionaire crypto investor and close ally of Donald Trump, the freshman senator stayed on message — framing it as an example of how Democrats should bring more people in the tent. (The fundraiser was first reported by Rolling Stone.)
“My general view of how to win elections is you have to get a lot of votes, and that means we’re going to have to have alliances with people that we may not agree with 100 percent of the time,” said Gallego, stating that “Marc Andreessen runs the largest venture capital firm in Arizona. We want to bring as many jobs as possible.”
Echoes With
So They're Going Nowhere Then
Donald Trump says there has been a "total reset" in US-China trade relations following the first day of talks between American and Chinese officials in Switzerland.Hold out for Oregon, Xi! Just give it 3 more months!
In a social media post, the US president described the talks as being "very good" and said change had been "negotiated in a friendly, but constructive, manner".
Saturday, May 10, 2025
This Stuff's Important
For decades, the FBI chief has received an 8:30 a.m. daily “director’s brief” with the most important information gathered from thousands of agents and analysts. Patel reportedly had trouble making the morning briefing, so it was dropped from five days a week to two.
“Even that has been a struggle,” an unnamed official told NBC.
Two current FBI officials said Patel sometimes seems uninterested in the materials, forcing them to try to create briefs that will hold his attention.
Too Late
On Friday morning, West Coast port officials told CNN about a startling sight: Not a single cargo vessel had left China with goods for the two major West Coast ports in the past 12 hours. That hasn’t happened since the pandemic.
Sure Elise
U.S. lawmakers are proposing a bill that would allow some Canadian snowbirds to stay in the United States longer, in hopes of rebuilding cross-border tourism and supporting local economies.
The Canadian Snowbird Visa Act proposes to extend the length of time eligible Canadian citizens aged 50 and over could visit the U.S. without a visa to 240 days, up from the current 182 days that are permitted each year.
DOGEd
In testimony on Capitol Hill on Tuesday and Wednesday, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins confirmed that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is now looking to fill critical positions, after agreeing to pay more than 15,000 employees' salaries and benefits through September in exchange for their resignations.
"We are actively looking and recruiting to fill those positions that are integral to the efforts and the key frontlines," Rollins told members of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday.
...
"So you let people go and you're looking for new people to fill the positions that they had experience in?" Murray asked.
"We're having those discussions right now," Rollins responded, while noting that 15,000 employees represents less than 15% of USDA's workforce and that the department loses 8,000 to 10,000 employees every year through attrition.
Still, Rollins invited some of those who took the deferred resignation offer to return.
"If they want to come back, and if they were in a key position, then we would love to have that conversation," she told lawmakers.
Friday, May 09, 2025
...The Democrats!
Nessel falsely suggested Guardian reporter @PomTerkins wrote a story blaming the “Jewish cabal” for her prosecuting pro-Palestinians. He actually reported about Nessel’s political and financial ties to UM officials.
— Steve Neavling (@MCmuckraker) May 9, 2025
Seems Bad
Air traffic controllers handling flights approaching and departing Newark Liberty International Airport experienced another outage early Friday morning.
The blackout included losing radar for about 90 seconds at 3:55 a.m. local time, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.
Freed Öztürk
According to various legal observers, Rümeysa Öztürk is being released on bail.
One day we'll be ready to talk about the group(s) that were feeding lists of students to deport to the Trump administration.**** Judge Sessions GRANTS BAIL/RELEASE to Rümeysa Öztürk: "The court finds that [Rümeysa Öztürk's] continued detention cannot stand."
— Joshua J. Friedman (@joshuajfriedman.com) May 9, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Law Firms Are Made Of People
"We'll take $2000/hr to defend you but might work against your interests if you make Trump mad" is not actually a good deal, or "ethical" in the lawyer sense.
We Will Bury You, Pigmonster Trump
China’s exports surged in April on the back of a jump in shipments to
Southeast Asian countries, offsetting a sharp drop in outbound goods to the U.S. as prohibitive tariffs kicked in....China’s shipments to the U.S. plunged over 21% in April year on year, while imports dropped nearly 14%, according to CNBC’s calculation of official customs data. Chinese U.S.-bound shipments had risen 9.1% in March, as exporters rushed to frontload orders ahead of tariff hikes.
Pigmonster Trump, getting desperate and trying to pass the buck:
Thursday, May 08, 2025
Sure Why Not
President Donald Trump is strongly considering installing Fox News host and former prosecutor Jeanine Pirro as interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Who's Your Daddy
Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates ratcheted up his feud with Elon Musk, accusing the world’s richest man of “killing the world’s poorest children” through what he said were misguided cuts to US development assistance.
Shocked
Well that didn't take long. Just weeks after dropping the Tesla Cybertruck's Range Extender from the vehicle's online configurator, Tesla has quietly killed off the accessory completely without delivering a single unit of the $16,000 battery to its customers.
An email went out to Cybertruck owners last night, informing them that the company is no longer planning to offer the feature and that their deposit will be refunded in full.
The accessory—essentially a large, secondary battery pack for boosting range—had been delayed time and time again since it was first announced. This led to onlookers claiming that the accessory was just vaporware and would never be delivered. Well, it turns out that these conspiracy theories were right, as Tesla announced to reservation holders on Wednesday that it wouldn't be delivering the Range Extender and would be refunding deposits in full.
New Pope
Pope Francis’ letter, JD Vance’s ‘ordo amoris’ and what the Gospel asks of all of us on immigration https://t.co/Ikk8gqOMzn
— Robert Prevost (@drprevost) February 13, 2025
Our LLM Future
LLMs might have some genuine applications, though as far as I can tell we are settling on "can be helpful for some coding activities" and "my horny chatbot," but people are using it for things there's no reason to think it would be any good for.
A Play In Two Acts
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was meeting last week with representatives from a teachers union in his home state when things quickly devolved.Act II:
Before long, Fetterman began repeating himself, shouting and questioning why “everybody is mad at me,” “why does everyone hate me, what did I ever do” and slamming his hands on a desk, according to one person who was briefed on what occurred.
As the meeting deteriorated, a staff member moved to end it and ushered the visitors into the hallway, where she broke down crying. The staffer was comforted by the teachers who were themselves rattled by Fetterman’s behavior, according to a second person who was briefed separately on the meeting.
I'm not saying he is intending to be threatening here, but a guy who is 6'8" and not otherwise small is inevitably threatening when he behaves like this.Schumer standing by Fetterman, says he’s an “all-star” who’s “doing a good job”
— Max Cohen (@maxpcohen) May 6, 2025
Wednesday, May 07, 2025
No, Seriously
*Yes I know that this isn't a realistic option for everybody, and that fortunate circumstances have made it possible for me, but my point is I would make a lot of sacrifices, if necessary, to obtain this.
Keeping Out The Canadian Menace
A drop in Canada-U.S. travel has led Calgary-based WestJet to cancel more flights south of the border.Airline flight schedules aren't extremely difficult to change, but once they change they aren't necessarily going to change back.
The information you need to know, sent directly to you: Download the CTV News App The airline says it is suspending flights from Vancouver to Austin until October.
Flights to other destinations, including Orlando, Los Angeles and Chicago will also be halted at different times between June and August.
Almost Did It
Republican challenger concedes a 2024 North Carolina Supreme Court election to the Democratic incumbent.
Stock Market Madness
Stock market: 😐
Bessent: We think China's going to remember our phone number soon!
Stock market: 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍
America's Love Affair With Car Parts
That’s why a new round of auto tariffs – this time on parts – coming into effect Saturday could upend the industry, even more than previous levies on imported cars.Insurance costs will rise, also, too.
As of 12:01 am ET on Saturday, most auto part imports will come with a 25% import tax.
Tuesday, May 06, 2025
Mr. Deals
US President Donald Trump said he would dictate tariff levels for US trading partners looking to avoid higher duties, appearing to move away from the idea that he would engage in back-and-forth negotiations.And then Rising Sun will come on the TV and he'll hit Japan with a 12000% tariff.
“We’re going to put very fair numbers down, and we’re going to say, here’s — what this country, what we want. And congratulations, we have a deal. And they’ll either say ‘great,’ and they’ll start shopping, or they’ll say, not good,’” Trump said Tuesday at the White House as he met with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Seems Bad
This spring, Vance is vice president, and President Donald Trump’s administration is imposing deep cuts and new restrictions, upending the very restoration efforts that Vance once championed. With the peak summer season just around the corner, Great Lakes scientists are concerned that they have lost the ability to protect the public from toxic algal blooms, which can kill animals and sicken people.
But That Wouldn't Be Sporting
Senate Republicans are about to make a terrible decision while simultaneously highlighting a tool Democrats can use to promote legislative accountability. News reports indicate that Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) is prepared to overturn Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough’s ruling that the Senate may not use the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to overturn Biden-era waivers allowing California to ban the sale of gas-powered cars.
But there’s a silver lining here. If Republicans take this step, Senate Democrats could force Republicans to vote on a myriad of the Trump administration’s unpopular actions, while stymieing the Republican agenda—legislation and judicial appointments included. So if Republicans push forward and accomplish a short-term goal, they open the door to even more difficult votes in the future.
Are They Working, Son?
Nom Nom Nom
The writeup pulls the only sane-sounding bit of the quote. Here's the full one (I pulled this off the subtitles):
Well, I guess I was supposed to be a moviemaker. We're talking, we started with the movie making. It will end. I mean it it represents something very strong, very powerful in terms of law and order. Our country needs law and order. Alcatraz is, I would say the ultimate, right? Alcatraz, Sing Sing and Alcatraz, the movies, but uh it's right now a museum, believe it or not. A lot of people go there. It has the most violent criminals in the world. And nobody ever escaped.This is what PBS quotes:
One person almost got there, but they, as you know, the story, they found his clothing rather badly ripped up and uh it was a lot of shark bites, a lot of, a lot of problems. Nobody's ever escaped from Alcatraz and just represented something uh strong having to do with law and order.
We need law and order in this country and so we're going to look at it, some of the people up here are going to be working very hard on that and uh We had a little conversation.
I think it's going to be very interesting. We'll see if we can bring it back in large form, and a lot, but I think it represents something right now it's a big hulk that's sitting there rusting and rotting, uh, very, uh, you look at it, it's sort of you saw that picture that was put out sort of amazing, but it, it sort of represents something that's both horrible and beautiful and strong and miserable we. It's got a lot of, it's got a lot of qualities that are interesting, and I think they, they make a point.
It represents something very strong, very powerful in terms of law and order. Our country needs law and order.
Monday, May 05, 2025
Seems Bad
Air traffic controllers guiding planes bound for Newark Liberty International Airport lost radar and radio communication for more than a minute early last week before flights at the key hub were snarled for days, according to people familiar with the matter.
The outage of those key systems occurred on April 28 and lasted nearly 90 seconds, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing the matter because it isn’t public. Following the incident, multiple employees were placed on trauma leave, the people said.
You Don't Have To Go The Full Zeke, Just Put Down The Gavel!
But They Didn't Leave Their Seats
Clyburn, 84, played a crucial role in elevating Biden to the presidency, and then threw his weight behind former Vice President Kamala Harris to succeed him after Biden quit the 2024 ticket. The lawmaker holds an important role as the top Democrat on an Appropriations Committee subcommittee and indicated he isn’t interested in stepping aside.You can even stay in Congress! The House, unlike the Senate, has plenty of room for members who don't do all that much. You know, like those 68-year-old whippersnappers who can't ever get a "promotion" because you won't stop being the ranking member! How is being a "mere" member of Congress giving up your life?
“Nancy left her seat. Steny left his seat. I left my seat. What the hell I’m supposed to do now?” Clyburn said when asked whether the party needed to think of bringing in younger members. “What do you want—me to give up my life?”
Sure Why Not
I don't think these tariffs always have specific goals in mind for "deals" but in this case I am pretty sure it is "celebrities and entertainment executives need to kiss his ass."
Above my pay grade, but apparently the statute that gives Trump "emergency" tariff authority specifically excludes movies, so...
THERE ARE TOO MANY STATES NOWADAYS. PLEASE ELIMINATE THREE. I AM NOT A CRACKPOT
👊🇺🇸🔥
A hacker has breached and stolen customer data from TeleMessage, an obscure Israeli company that sells modified versions of Signal and other messaging apps to the U.S. government to archive messages, 404 Media has learned. The data stolen by the hacker contains the contents of some direct messages and group chats sent using its Signal clone, as well as modified versions of WhatsApp, Telegram, and WeChat. TeleMessage was recently the center of a wave of media coverage after Mike Waltz accidentally revealed he used the tool in a cabinet meeting with President Trump.
According to the article, the modified version of Signal doesn't do end-to-end encrypting between Signal and the archive, so... it isn't secure at all.
welp:
One hacked message was sent to a group chat apparently associated with the crypto firm Galaxy Digital. One message said, “need 7 dems to get to 60.. would be very close” to the “GD Macro” group. Another message said, “Just spoke to a D staffer on the senate side - 2 cosponsors (Alsobrooks and gillibrand) did not sign the opposition letter so they think the bill still has a good chance of passage the senate with 5 more Ds supporting it.”
This means a hacker was able to steal what appears to be active, timely discussion about the efforts behind passing a hugely important and controversial cryptocurrency bill; Saturday, Democratic lawmakers published a letter explaining they would oppose it. Bill cosponsors Maryland Sen. Angela Alsobrooks and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand did not sign that letter.
Sunday, May 04, 2025
Mister Deals
PRES. DONALD TRUMP:Hopefully this new economics is taught at all the finest schools.
I can't tell you that. I can tell you that we're making a lot of money. We're doing great. Again, we were losing more than $5 billion a day. $5 billion a day. You don't talk about that. And right now, we're going to be at a point very soon where we're making money every day. Look –
KRISTEN WELKER:
How soon?
PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
– we were losing hundreds of billions of dollars with China. Now we're essentially not doing business with China. Therefore, we're saving hundreds of billions of dollars. Very simple.
Lord Sidcup
Some white collar workers may be on the brink of layoffs thanks to AI, but the Secretary of Commerce says they will always have a place in America’s factories. As the U.S. puts up high tariffs and curbs immigration, the administration hopes to fuel an intergenerational manufacturing boom.
“It’s time to train people not to do the jobs of the past, but to do the great jobs of the future,” Howard Lutnick told CNBC this week.
“This is the new model, where you work in these plants for the rest of your life, and your kids work here, and your grandkids work here.”
DEI
Bouie:
To read some prominent commentators is to get the impression that of all the things the administration is doing, the public is most receptive to its attacks on D.E.I. But there’s no real evidence to say this is the case. In fact, D.E.I. holds majority support among American adults, and when asked whether they approve or disapprove of the president’s attacks on diversity programs, 53 percent say they disapprove.
This might be because most Americans perceive something that these prominent commentators do not, which is that the administration’s attack on D.E.I. is less about fairness than it is recreating systems of domination and subordination. Consider this line of thought from Richard Kahlenberg of the Progressive Policy Institute, a curiously named group founded as the primary think tank of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council in 1989. According to Kahlenberg, observations that the Trump administration is not interested in fairness as such are “over the top.” To him, the president simply wants the government to “treat different racial groups the same.”
This is hard to take seriously. So far, in this apparent effort to spread racial equality, the White House has removed, without apparent cause or real justification, a number of Black Americans from senior positions in the military, removed the work of Black, women and Jewish authors from the Naval Academy (while leaving books such as “Mein Kampf”), criticized the Smithsonian, particularly its Museum of African American History, for spreading supposedly “improper ideology,” pushed the National Park Service to rewrite its history of the Underground Railroad, gutted the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, rescinded executive orders mandating desegregation in federal contracting, revoked a decades-old school desegregation order, and fired dozens of women and minorities from the boards that review science and research at the National Institutes of Health.
Saturday, May 03, 2025
Critical Workers
The FAA has not commented officially on the nature of the staffing problems, though staffing has been listed by the FAA as the cause of delays since Monday equipment outages led to United Airlines canceling more than 100 flights and diverting 37 others.I haven't seen the precise reason they walked off the job, yet.
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby put out a statement Friday about the delays, saying the airport’s issues seem to be a combination of technology failures and “over 20% of the FAA controllers for EWR (Newark Liberty International Airport) walked off the job.”
And Who Was In It
An Army helicopter flying in the D.C. airspace Thursday forced two commercial passenger jets inbound to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport to perform go-around maneuvers — roughly three months after the airport was the site of the nation’s worst aviation fatality in more than two decades.
Friday, May 02, 2025
But Why
Floating On Fart Fumes
Don't take financial advice from me.
*apocryphal, as Moe reminded me.
Copium
China said it is assessing the possibility of trade talks with the US, the first sign since Donald Trump hiked tariffs last month that negotiations could begin between the two sides.really follow from this:
China’s Commerce Ministry said in a Friday statement that it had noted senior US officials repeatedly expressing their willingness to talk to Beijing about tariffs, and urged officials in Washington to show “sincerity” toward China.I think the message is, "beg harder."
“The US has recently sent messages to China through relevant parties, hoping to start talks with China,” the ministry added. “China is currently evaluating this.”
Thursday, May 01, 2025
Familiars
After being questioned about this, Karni responded to the vile twitter trolls by linking to something that Jeffries said... two weeks ago!
Utterly shameless.In fact - https://t.co/BRHAm0XqKT
— Annie Karni (@anniekarni) April 30, 2025
Obummer's people and their allies in Congress would do this. I watched it happen when I was in communication with offices about various post-financial crisis policies.
Basically:
Lesser journalist reports something from a lefty Congressional office (something like, Larry Summers is on his bullshit again).There's a belief in the mainstream DC press that The Left is wrong, always - then it was more economics, now it is WOKE - and they will happily parrot the people who say so in a way which can fairly be described as strategic collaboration.
NYT reporter gets quote: NUH-UH.
Case closed.
I know lots of people don't like intra-dem factional dispute stuff, especially when the bad orange man is in charge, but one faction understands all too well that every crisis is an opportunity. "They" are very very worried that the bad orange man will inspire a leftish backlash.
Right now the factions are, basically, "team do nothing except gesture at egg prices with an exasperated face" and team "maybe a program of mass kidnapping is something we should worry about."
Follow Their Lead
Two Trump administration officials and a Trump aide tell Rolling Stone that they have done some stockpiling of their own in recent weeks or months, and that they know others working in Republican politics — inside and outside of the administration — who are doing the same. One of the Trump officials says they have already run to Target to bulk-buy toilet paper, some types of food, and other household supplies.
When asked why they’re doing this, the Trump aide — who says they and their partner have done similar household-supply hoarding lately, and are also “stashing cash” reserves in their D.C.-area home — simply replies: “Because it would be stupid not to!” The aide adds that they still believe in Trump’s tariffs regime, though, citing the supposed advantage of “short-term pain” in exchange for long-term “prosperity.”
Dipshit Centrists Assemble
But this sentence jumped out:
The building of this coalition should start with an acknowledgment that Mr. Trump is the legitimate president and many of his actions are legal.
First, you can find people who claim anything, but "the guy is not the legitimate president" was the MAGA claim about Biden, and not, actually, the central focus of any broader objection to Trump.
More than that, the kicker, "many of his actions are legal," is amazing! What a thing to assert about the the president! Many of his actions are legal! Many of them! Take that, hippies!
It is a hilarious bit of coalition building, centrist style.
Bye Bye, Michael
Incentives
I'm not saying it's the only thing that matters, but China is the big one, and Xi isn't going to let Trump get away with any face saving nonsense, unlike most other countries. Unless he lets Trump do his "they begged me for a deal" performance, there isn't going to be a deal, and that's not going to happen.FED WATCH: The looming supply crunch “is sufficient incentive for trade talks to speed up .. which seems now all too predictable .. “.. The market will trade ahead of this .. Indeed, .. Nasdaq futures are breaking through the 50-day average ..”
— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) May 1, 2025 at 11:27 AM
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Only One Lump Of Coal For You This Year
In the space of a few hours, Donald Trump went from hailing America’s new “golden age” to warning parents their kids would have fewer toys — and they’d cost more.