Bingo! The Trade War with our Allies is all about National Security!
Maybe we should take the aid out of the Pentagon’s budget?
Jesus Christ. Here’s Trump going on about how his agreement to negotiate with Europe has “opened up Europe for you farmers”. The agreement explicitly excludes agricultural products and as mentioned above, there are already no EU tariffs on soybeans, one of the chief agricultural exports (especially for Illinois).
He lies. He likes to rile up his base blow sunshine up their ass. It’s what he’s done, repeatedly. “We’ll lock her up!!.” Really, Trump? Really?
It is not surprising to me at all that he’s trying to verbally appease fellate the agriculture groups who are pissed off right now.
Book review by Chris Hayes. His observations on trump though are what’s relevant here.
The president is a liar. He lies about matters of the utmost consequence (nuclear diplomacy) and about the most trivial (his golf game). He lies about things you can see with your own eyes. He lies about things he said just moments ago. He lies the way a woodpecker attacks a tree: compulsively, insistently, instinctively. He lies until your temples throb. He lies until you want to submerge your head in a bucket of ice and pray for release.
And yet millions of Americans either believe what he says or delight in his obvious deceptions. One of the country’s two major political coalitions is devoted to justifying and defending those lies to the point of absurdity. Republicans will argue all at once that the president is not tearing immigrant children from their parents, that he is doing it but it’s necessary to deter future immigrants, that the children aren’t really the children of those who are bringing them but rather coached to pretend they are by smugglers, and that Obama did the same thing and now Donald Trump has mercifully ended the practice. It feels very much as if something has ripped in the fabric of reality of America at this moment.
…
Given my job, I am forced to ask myself every day: Is it possible to say anything truly profound or new about Donald Trump at this moment in time? He is describable, almost fully, in a few short words: a misogynist, a bigot, a narcissist, a con man and a demagogue. And his behavior, like the woodpecker, feels instinctual and feral: a deeply broken man who hammers away moment to moment trying to repair his own brokenness, and leaving nothing but a hole.
Scathingly accurate.
But he’s a very specific type of hole.
See, tariffs are so good for the US economy!
(This quarter. Next quarter …)
It’s just such bullshit when big government interferes in the free market.
Trump’s proposed China tariffs upped to 25%
Edit: And China has retaliated with a threat for unspecified tariffs on $60bn of US goods.
The China retaliation isn’t unspecified - they published detailed lists of 5000+ goods with 5-25% tariffs. Most items pretty small, given China doesn’t import “much” from the US. It takes a lot of items to add up to tens of billions…
Fair enough. The article I’d read at the time said they hadn’t put specific tariff levels on them yet.
This happened Friday by the way, hundreds of people lost their jobs because of Trump. The only people interested in trying to help the newly unemployed folks in Kansas is their union. No help of any kind from their Republican representative nor a word from Trump.
Unsurprisingly no media is covering this story, the real news media have no interest in it, seeing that they assume the workers are mainly are Trump voters losing their jobs so who cares? The Fox news propaganda network obviously sees no upside in publicizing these peoples plight as it would expose Republicans for what they are.
So these people just lose their jobs ignored and try and beg for some pennies from the Republican slashed unemployment benefits in Kansas.
I dunno seems kinda symbolic of where we are in a way. I hope these people find new jobs but its going to be hard.
Is that really the case? I would rather think the reason it’s not getting a lot of coverage is that in the greater scheme of things it’s not so newsworthy. My local news spends about 50% of their time reporting on killings and wildfires, 20% on sports, 20% on weather and 5% on your consumer watchdog or feel-good story. No time for something that requires a bit of reflection or thought.
Plus, there’s so much crap to cover with respect to Trump at the national level that it’s easy to see how this story would slip through the cracks… until they do a piece on the effects of the tariffs (so they’ll talk about the layoffs and then have some doofus economist on who will parrot some sort of trickle down crap so their report is “balanced”).
Yeah that is fair, it is wrong of me to assume their motivations. I withdraw that accusation (I wont edit it out so folks can see the context). I do think layoffs of this size are a big deal for that community though. And yeah obviously there is a lot of awful things created by Trump and Republicans happening right now competing for attention, but still, I just imagine how I would feel if this has happened to my community and there was crickets in the national media.
I’m sure that the Republicans, friends of the working class, will surely work out at least as much assistance for these hard working Americans as they did for the Agribusiness corporations that were affected by the tariffs. 12 billion was it? Yup, I’m sure we’ll get that aaaaannnnnyyyy minute now.
I think it’s a bit different for national media than local media. It would be an outrage (journalistically) if local media didn’t cover it, and I’ll genuinely be surprised if they didn’t. At a national level, 200 jobs barely moves the needle, and if it weren’t for the obvious connection to Trump’s policies you wouldn’t expect them to report it. Even with it, it’s understandable that it would slip through the cracks given how shitty cable news is.
Yeah thats fair too. FYI 200 was just last weeks round, its gonna be 800 by the end. Which as you say is not a big deal at the national level. But 800 jobs gone in a community that size. Well its gonna hurt you know?
Also I cant help feeling even though many of these people voted for Trump the Democratic party could be doing more here. Working class people should be the Democratic party’s bread and butter.
They should be, but apparently these people care more about their bigotry and their guns than they do their own well-being, so they continue to vote Republican.
White working class people do. Really, white working class men.