President Trump: Making America Great Again...

[Northwestcoug]

Ha all these noobs talking about The Handmaid's Tale as if it was Margaret Atwood's only important work. I got your Handmaid's Tale and then some right here!

IMG_9430.jpg.jpeg
The woman whose home we are renting while looking for a house to buy is a proud NDPer (hard left). This picture doesn't even include all her Atwood books.

[Northwestcoug]

So, there won't be millions of Americans turning all those screws in iPhones in American factories anymore? Sad:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/12/tech/...ffs/index.html

Total beta cuck move.

[myboynoah]

Yeah clearly an unnecessary performative gesture. But all this Handmaids Tale talk is hilarious.

Agree with that, because it is so bizarrely extreme.

That said, and how do I say this, I see Trump aggressively pushing up against civil liberty guardrails and pushing over some that we took for granted. And we took them for granted because we couldn't conceive of the government taking such action. For example, this grad student who had his visa pulled. Or picking up brown people with tattoos off the street and shipping them to El Salvador without due process. But that happens, and we all move on and adjust to this new normal, primarily because it doesn't directly affect us. Is that a harbinger of Trump pushing to the next guardrail? He has openly talked about outsourcing the incarceration of U.S. citizen criminals to a place like El Salvador. Is that coming? Or what if he fires Jerome Powell and puts his own lackey in as the Chair of the Fed? Will he just do it and make us deal with it because his team has found some loophole that makes it a plausible move or repubs in the House and Senate are still so cowed? So if that happens, what's the next move down this road?

It's like that "camel's nose under the tent" metaphor. Is that happening and at some point in the future are we going to look around and wonder how we got to where we are? I feel that way to an extent with tattooed brown people being picked up and shipped off to El Salvador, and people cheering. How did we get to this point? I think that may be the concern some are expressing.

[frank ryan]

Yeah clearly an unnecessary performative gesture. But all this Handmaids Tale talk is hilarious.

At what point will this stuff alarm you?

Handmaids tale stuff is hyperbolic but it's dumb to worry about this stuff. This administration is all about Christian Nationalism.

[myboynoah]

Trump blinking again.

Trump exempts phones, computers, chips from new tariffs

The guidance, issued late Friday evening, comes after Trump earlier this month imposed 145% tariffs on products from China, a move that threatened to take a toll on tech giants like Apple, which makes iPhones and most of its other products in China.

The guidance also includes exclusions for other electronic devices and components, including semiconductors, solar cells, flat panel TV displays, flash drives, and memory cards.

These products could eventually be subject to additional duties, but they are likely to be far lower than the 145% rate that Trump had imposed on goods from China.

[USUC]

Trump blinking again.

Trump exempts phones, computers, chips from new tariffs

Relief for the corporations that can influence, but not the small business owner. A perfect example of the corruption that is central to tarrifs.

[PaloAltoCougar]

Hegseth's removal of books (not sure if they went full-Nazi and burned them) from the Naval Academy library is truly disturbing. Fortunately, a lot of military brass are speaking out against this genuine outrage.

On the other hand, as much as I loathe Trump, Bill Maher's report (here's the video) of his private dinner with Trump at the White House was very good and actually showed a side of Trump I could tolerate. But it also makes clear much of what Trump does is purely performative and demonstrates how Trump has always been strongly committed to the Roy Cohn approach to life--never admit error or wrongdoing and ALWAYS be on the attack. Sickening. But a good video, though.

[myboynoah]

Relief for the corporations that can influence, but not the small business owner. A perfect example of the corruption that is central to tarrifs.

Yep. And NWC above is correct. Such a beta move to do this on a Friday night after the weekly news cycle closes. And I thought we were going to all be getting those highly paid jobs assembling iphones.

China totally has Trump's number and this confirms Xi's strategy to just wait for Trump to call.

[myboynoah]

Hegseth's removal of books (not sure if they went full-Nazi and burned them) from the Naval Academy library is truly disturbing. Fortunately, a lot of military brass are speaking out against this genuine outrage.

On the other hand, as much as I loathe Trump, Bill Maher's report (here's the video) of his private dinner with Trump at the White House was very good and actually showed a side of Trump I could tolerate. But it also makes clear much of what Trump does is purely performative and demonstrates how Trump has always been strongly committed to the Roy Cohn approach to life--never admit error or wrongdoing and ALWAYS be on the attack. Sickening. But a good video, though.

Thanks, PAC. Warning, don't play in front of wives that despise profanity.

Not surprising. I saw Trump with a group of leading Korean businessmen. He was awesome, recognizing people in the room, and gracious and engaging. Unhooked the felt rope barrier to take pictures and gladhand folks. A total charmer when he wants and needs to be.

Plus, Maher needs to pay the bills just like the rest of u.

[frank ryan]

Hegseth's removal of books (not sure if they went full-Nazi and burned them) from the Naval Academy library is truly disturbing. Fortunately, a lot of military brass are speaking out against this genuine outrage.

On the other hand, as much as I loathe Trump, Bill Maher's report (here's the video) of his private dinner with Trump at the White House was very good and actually showed a side of Trump I could tolerate. But it also makes clear much of what Trump does is purely performative and demonstrates how Trump has always been strongly committed to the Roy Cohn approach to life--never admit error or wrongdoing and ALWAYS be on the attack. Sickening. But a good video, though.

Removing the books also signals what this administration is about. Of all the prioritizes, this is what Hegseth does so early on.

Glad we are banning pride flags and making a special exception with Afrikaner refugees.

[USUC]

Its hilarious watching congressional Republicans navigate Trump. Almost to a person the strategy appears to be obfuscate until the actions of Trump fall apart so they never have to worry about challenging him directly. Only Rand Paul spoke out definitively on tarrifs, others just made statements they were "nervous." Ultimately all these grand plans will fall apart because there are idiots trying to make them happen. So elected Republicans strategy to wait it out seems to work (at the expense of their dignity of course).

Also, remember when we were worried Vance is especially bad because he is smart? I don't think we have to worry about that.

[myboynoah]

Its hilarious watching congressional Republicans navigate Trump. Almost to a person the strategy appears to be obfuscate until the actions of Trump fall apart so they never have to worry about challenging him directly. Only Rand Paul spoke out definitively on tarrifs, others just made statements they were "nervous." Ultimately all these grand plans will fall apart because there are idiots trying to make them happen. So elected Republicans strategy to wait it out seems to work (at the expense of their dignity of course).

Also, remember when we were worried Vance is especially bad because he is smart? I don't think we have to worry about that.

Yeah, The Hillbilly's shtick was great on obscure altright podcasts where the education level matched the MAGA norm and they ate up his veiled racism and open misogyny. But on the world stage and open Twitter, he gets exposed for his lazy preparation and skewed worldview. He has fully disappeared since the election, and when he has peeked his head up, he's been shot down pretty readily. He's best when he can aggressively prevaricate with a preordained script, like on those Sunday morning talk shows. Maybe we'll see him tomorrow.

[falafel]

Yep. And NWC above is correct. Such a beta move to do this on a Friday night after the weekly news cycle closes. And I thought we were going to all be getting those highly paid jobs assembling iphones.

China totally has Trump's number and this confirms Xi's strategy to just wait for Trump to call.

I am not a China expert (or really any kind of expert), but I listened to a podcast from the WSJ yesterday with their China bureau chief and she seemed to think that Xi was in the worse position.

[myboynoah]

I am not a China expert (or really any kind of expert), but I listened to a podcast from the WSJ yesterday with their China bureau chief and she seemed to think that Xi was in the worse position.

I'm not an expert either and I don't know her justification for her position. But I honestly don't so how that is. The Chinese populace is very unhappy with the U.S. and China is flooding the media with anti-U.S. stories (The Hillbilly was very helpful in this effort). So Xi has the man on the street in much great percentages than Trump does here in the U.S. Xi has greater control of politics, media, and the economy than Trump does here, so Xi is better positioned to hold out. Electronics account for 22% of China's sales to the U.S. and Trump just took that off the table. Those exports won't be affected. Xi can always throw money at industries that will suffer. Plus, the world is not happy with Trump, so China is there to be the "steady" trading partner where Trump is the erratic, impulsive lunatic that is causing pain.

As for Trump, he is the one that already caved once (the 90-day pause) and blinked again (last night's tariff exemptions for iphones et al). I'm sure China sees a leader not quite sure of his approach and knows the levers to hit (namely the bond market). Plus Trump regularly caves. It's a pattern. Who is the world siding with in this fight? Gotta be China.

There may be some serious underlying factors that affect Xi, but I haven't heard them.

Last night blinking by Trump as brought some funny tweets.

Embedded Tweet

[falafel]

I'm not an expert either and I don't know her justification for her position. But I honestly don't so how that is. The Chinese populace is very unhappy with the U.S. and China is flooding the media with anti-U.S. stories (The Hillbilly was very helpful in this effort). So Xi has the man on the street in much great percentages than Trump does here in the U.S. Xi has greater control of politics, media, and the economy than Trump does here, so Xi is better positioned to hold out. Electronics account for 22% of China's sales to the U.S. and Trump just took that off the table. Those exports won't be affected. Xi can always throw money at industries that will suffer. Plus, the world is not happy with Trump, so China is there to be the "steady" trading partner where Trump is the erratic, impulsive lunatic that is causing pain.

As for Trump, he is the one that already caved once (the 90-day pause) and blinked again (last night's tariff exemptions for iphones et al). I'm sure China sees a leader not quite sure of his approach and knows the levers to hit (namely the bond market). Plus Trump regularly caves. It's a pattern. Who is the world siding with in this fight? Gotta be China.

There may be some serious underlying factors that affect Xi, but I haven't heard them.

Last night blinking by Trump as brought some funny tweets.

Embedded Tweet

It has to do with Chinese political culture and norms. She gave an example of a mid-level official who was tasked with getting a meeting with a cabinet level US official, but the US stonewalled him because he they wanted the same level official to reach out or something. But Chinese political culture would not allow the higher official to act without the mid level guy going before him or something. I didn’t fully understand it, and I think that’s kind of my point. They have internal constraints that handcuff them in some ways we don’t realize or appreciate, and basically Xi would lose face politically if he just called Trump.