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James Fallows: “Defund the Air Traffic Controllers”

By dianeravitch
February 18, 2025 //
13

James Fallows is a veteran journalist, one of the best. He predicts disaster ahead because of the ignorance of the DOGE team slashing the federal workforce.

Screenshot from CNN, credited to John Nelson, of Delta regional jet flight 4819 upside-down after landing at Pearson Airport in Toronto, after crash landing today.

He writes:

This post is about today’s crash-landing of a commuter jet, en route from Minneapolis to Toronto, which for still-unexplained reasons flipped over and landed on its back without killing any passengers.

Good news for all those aboard.

It coincides with cautionary news about anyone flying on US-based airlines. Let’s go through the de-brief:

The big questions.

Was today’s crash-landing in Toronto directly traceable to this past weekend’s Musk-Trump mass layoffs of FAA officials in the US? 

—Almost certainly not.

Will future crashes be directly traceable to this move?

—Almost certainly so. 

Any future-history of US airline disasters in 2026 or beyond will probably start its narrative in this past holiday weekend of 2025. That is when the Musk tech-bro team known as DOGE, instructed by Russel Vought and empowered by Trump, began its mass layoffs of air-safety officials whose employment status showed “probationary.” (Even if they had been on the job for decades, and were classified as “probationary” only because they had recently received a promotion.)

After any aviation disaster, the careful investigators of the NTSB try to reconstruct the “accident chain.” We’re beginning the accident chain for future disaster, right now. 

Let’s take this step-by-step.

What happened in Toronto.

As with almost any aviation accident, it will take time to be sure. What is known as the time I write is this:

  • The airplane was a Bombardier regional jet. By coincidence, this was the the same make, though a slightly different model, as the regional jet involved in the large-casualty collision near National Airport in DC this month. 
  • Many of the passengers have been taken to the hospital. But as of the time I write, all appear to have survived.
  • The weather was challenging, and the winds were very strong and gusty, when the plane touched down at Toronto/Pearson and then apparently flipped over onto its back. Did the gusty crosswinds cause the plane to lose its balance and flip? At this moment no one can be sure. The weather and winds appear to have been bad but not unmanageable.¹ We’ll see what further data might reveal.
  • Was this in any way related to the large-scale layoffs of air traffic control professionals by the new Musk-Trump-Doge regime? There’s no reason yet to think so. The recording of Air Traffic Control guidance from the Toronto tower, which you can listen to here², seems entirely routine until the moment the regional jet has a bad touch down.³

But will it be related to crashes in the future? That seems to me inevitable. 

—You lay off much of the fire-fighting force, you’re inviting a destructive fire. 

—You lay off teachers, you’re inviting ignorance. 

—And if you lay off the people who have made air-travel safe, you are inviting unsafe air travel. 

Which is Trump, Musk, and their ninjas seem to be doing now. 

But don’t ask me. Ask someone who has devoted his life to air-traffic safety. 

What will happen in our skies.

Someone I have been in touch with for many years, and whose airspace I once flew through during his time as a controller and mine as a pilot in that part of the country, sends a message today that I thought worth quoting in full. This correspondent writes:

They fired a bunch of probationery employees last night. Basically everyone other than controllers or safety inspectors, apparently.

It’s one of those things that has a slow but corrosive effect on safety. For example: Our team is bracing for cuts. One of the biggest things we do is environmental review and community engagement for proposed actions in airspace or procedures.

So if someone needs a new or amended approach [JF note: like those over the Potomac, in light of recent problems], the flight procedure team—currently staffed at 13, should be 17—designs it and gives it to us.

Our environmental specialists do the NEPA [environmental policy] review; myself and other ATC subject matter experts assist them by checking the procedures, explaining what’s going on, and checking it for any variety of things in how it fits in with everything else in the area. We also do community engagement stuff if it is called for. 

[On our team] all the ‘probationary’ people got fired.

Will it lead to disaster? Not immediately. But fewer people trying to do the same amount of work will lead to stuff getting missed….

We prioritize and do the most safety-critical stuff first. But a lot will fall aside.

‘Boys throw stones at frogs in fun…’

Let’s return to the theme of a preceding dispatch: Elon Musk and his acolytes are having fun, and perhaps preparing for a privatization of the FAA, but in the process they are putting all of the rest of us in danger.

—I submit that I know more about air safety, and about FAA procedures, than Elon Musk does, or any of the members of his zealot/ignoramus team.

—And I know at least a thousand people who are vastly more experienced and knowledgeable than I am.

The Musk/Trump people are empowering the know-nothings. Who tear things down because they have no idea of who built them up.

Conceivably this will be the barrier—the risk that constituents might die in airplane crahses—that stops them? When GOP politicians flying out of DCA think that Musk-ite shortcuts might kill them? When even Musk’s private jets have to deal with over-stressed air traffic controllers?

We don’t know. But the powers that be are pushing the limits.

—As a pilot, I trust air traffic controllers. As a passenger, I trust the multi-layer safety network that decades’ worth of relentless self-examination has built up.

—As a citizen, I do not trust the standards that the clown-corrupt Trump/Musk regime has introduced. 

‘Defund the police’ became a right-wing campaign slogan. ‘Defund Air Traffic Control’ will get us killed.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Disruption, Ethics, Ignorance, Musk, Elon, Stupid, Trump

Orlando Sentinel on Trump’s Gaza Fantasy: Is He Unhinged or Has He Gone Mad?”

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2025 //
10

The Orlando Sentinel editorial board published a scathing editorial about Trump’s ridiculous idea of evicting the people of Gaza and turning their land into a luxury resort.

It said:

No president ever proposed anything so unhinged as Donald Trump’s brutal fantasy of evicting some 2.3 million Palestinians from Gaza and turning it into a massive real estate deal.
Trump’s “Riviera of the Middle East” is so drastic, wrong and delusional as to make people wonder whether he was serious or had just gone mad. It was obvious he hadn’t thought it through.

His apologists scrambled unconvincingly to make sense of it. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, the former Florida congressman, suggested that it was a negotiating gambit.

Trump, he said, was simply challenging Arab nations “to come with their own solutions” if they don’t like his. We appreciate that Waltz — a generally rational man with deep experience in Middle East politics — has to shoulder the burden of trying to make Trump’s erratic proclamations seem rational. (He was also the person shoved out front after Trump made the outlandish claim that a deadly plane crash was somehow caused by DEI.)

But to fulfill his role as a trusted vizier to the Oval Office, Waltz should give Trump the unvarnished truth: This kind of bizarre behavior — sincere or not — is not helping.

It’s more likely to encourage Israel to make life in Gaza even more hellish and desperate, further destabilizing Israel’s own security at a time when the current administration is likely to see U.S. equivocation as a go-ahead for more aggression.

Vintage Trump

Trump surprised Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who ventured that the displacement would be only temporary. But that’s not what Trump said.
It was, of course, vintage Trump in one respect. His entire life has been transactional, so it would be in character for him to see the tragedy, fear and hopelessness in Gaza as just another opportunity for Trump-branded hotels and casinos.

Even if it ends up as just a pipe dream, however, it’s hardly harmless.

It has subverted the already distant prospect of a Mideast peace. It caters to the current Israeli government’s worst instincts. It repudiates decades of U.S. policy and world opinion favoring a two-state solution with a Palestinian state alongside Israel. There is no other road to peace.

It has put the lives of the remaining hostages in Gaza at greater risk by giving Hamas a potential pretext to renounce the ceasefire.

Stoking antisemitism

And it is certain to further inflame antisemitism in the United States and elsewhere.

Trump has mortified the nation and our government by exposing his gross ignorance of what a president should know about international law and the tangled history of the Middle East.

He should have known that it would be unthinkable for Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia ever to agree to it.

He should have known that it would be regarded everywhere as ethnic cleansing, a form of genocide comparable to what happened to the Armenians during World War I.

He should have known, but didn’t care, that Gaza’s civilians, as one said, “would rather live in tents next to their destroyed homes rather than relocate to another place.”
Worldwide condemnation

Criticism was swift and worldwide. Even Russia, right for once, called it “out of the question.”
In the U.S. Congress, most reaction ranged from speechlessness to consternation, especially over the inevitable involvement of U.S. troops.

Trump’s plan delighted the Israeli right wing at the cost of additionally compromising the Jewish state. He validated the suspicion that ethnic cleansing was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intent from the outset.

Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition partners, such as the racist Knesset member Itmar Ben-Gvir, have been open about purging Gaza of Palestinians.

“The only solution to Gaza is to encourage the migration of Gazans,” Ben-Gvir said.

White House optics


It was no coincidence that Trump sprung the scheme at the White House with Netanyahu by his side, or that the Israeli wore a red tie — Trump’s signature color — while Trump wore blue, which is symbolic of Israel.


Many believe that what Ben-Gvir said has been the strategy all along behind the excessive bombing that took thousands of civilian lives and damaged or destroyed some 60% of Gaza’s buildings, waterworks and other essential infrastructure, along with more than two-thirds of its farmland.

But Israel would never be able to deport more than 2 million people without U.S. support. That’s what makes Trump’s remarks so reckless.
The head of the Zionist Organization of America endorsed Trump’s repugnant scheme. Jewish groups that are more broad-minded and sensible reacted with concern over the fate of the hostages and revulsion at the entire idea.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the liberal lobby J Street, said “there aren’t adequate words to express our disgust at the forcible displacement of Palestinians with the assistance of the United States of America. … We call on leaders around the world, political leaders in this country, and, of course, Jewish communal leaders in this country to express in no uncertain terms that these proposals are absolutely unacceptable — legally and morally.”

It took less than three weeks back in the Oval Office for Trump to commit a monumental foreign policy blunder. He probably won’t admit it, but he desperately needs the advice that cooler heads like Rubio, and wiser, more grounded experts like Waltz, can impart. It’s their duty, by the very nature of their roles and their duty to the American people as well as the cause of global peace, to figure out a way to get him to listen.

And if that fails, it’s past time for Congress to do something about him, starting with a resolution of disapproval. It bears remembering: Silence is consent.


The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board includes Executive  Editor Roger Simmons, Opinion Editor Krys Fluker and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant, Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney and editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman. Send letters to insight@orlandosentinel.com.
© 2025 Orlando Sentinel

Categories Ignorance, Insane, International, Shame, Stupid, Trump

Politico: Is There a Cure for Stupidity?

By dianeravitch
February 9, 2025 //
18

Peter Navarro is an economist who currently serves as a trade advisor to Trump. In Trump’s first term, Navarro was also an aide on trade issues. When the January 6 commission asked him to testify, he refused. He was eventually sentenced to four months in prison for contempt of Congress.

Navarro claimed in an event sponsored by Politico that Trump’s plans to create an External Revenue Service to collect tariffs were brilliant. He predicted that tariffs would produce so much money for the government that they could eventually replace income taxes as the primary source of revenue.

Currently, Politico points out, tariffs are collected by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Bureau. But the tariffs are paid not by the country selling the goods, but by the company importing them. Most economists predict that the price increases will be passed on to consumers, which is another way of “taxing” them.

In other words, tariffs increase inflation.

Categories Economy, Stupid, Trump

MMA Fighter Praises Hitler, Denies Holocaust as Mass Stupidity Epidemic Spreads

By dianeravitch
February 8, 2025 //
28

Here is what Trump has wrought: He has made it acceptable for people to be as bigoted and stupid in public as they want, with no sense of shame attached to their bigotry or their stupidity. When Trump attacks DEI, he is openly avowing his racism and misogny. When he rants about immigrants, he doesn’t mean white immigrants, he means nonwhite immigrants.

Thanks to Trump’s malign influence, we get a story like the following, which appeared in the New York Daily News. Bryce Mitchell is a mixed martial arts “star” who flaunts his bigotry and ignorance and belittles the schools that tried to educate him and inculcate a sense of human decency.

MMA star Bryce Mitchell praised Adolf Hitler as a “good guy” and denied the Holocaust happened in a rant on his new podcast, “ArkanSanity.”

“I honestly think Hitler was a good guy, based upon my own research, not my public education and indoctrination,” the 30-year-old fighter said in the first episode.

“He fought for his country, he wanted to purify it by kicking the greedy Jews out who were destroying his country and turning them all into gays,” he added. “Was Hitler perfect? No, but he was fighting for his people. He wanted a pure nation.”

After co-host Roli Delgado countered that genocide was bad, Mitchell then denied the Holocaust.

“That’s what your public education will tell you Roli, because you believe your public education because you haven’t done your own research. When you realize there’s no possible way they could’ve burned and cremated 6 million bodies, you’re gonna realize the Holocaust ain’t real,” he said.

Mitchell, who competes in UFC’s featherweight division, was roundly denounced by others in the fighting community following his comments.

“Each and every day MMA finds a way to reach a new low,” broadcaster Ariel Helwani wrote on social mediaThursday. “A new way of embarrassing itself and those who are fans of it.”

“It just continues to baffle me at how unbelievably stupid — not to mention bigoted — some of the people in the sport or associated with the sport can be,” Helwani concluded.

Mitchell is no stranger to saying divisive things aloud. Last year, he said he planned to home school his children to prevent them from “turning gay.”

“That’s the reason I’m going to home-school Tucker, because I don’t want him to be a communist,” he said in an Instagram video while holding up his son. “I don’t want him to worship Satan. I don’t want him to be gay.”

Categories Bigotry, Evil, Fascism, History, Ignorance, Stupid, Trump

California: Trump’s Water Release Didn’t Help Los Angeles or Farmers: A Stunt

By dianeravitch
February 7, 2025 //
19

The Los Angeles Times reported that Trump used the devastating Los Angeles fires to stage a pointless stunt: He sent the Army Corps of Engineers to release water from two Northern California reservoirs. He claimed that he released the water to help put the fires out, but by the time he did it, the fires were almost completely extinguished, and it would not have flowed to Los Angeles anyway.

Now the farmers who rely on the water in the reservoirs are worried if they will have enough water this summer.

Days after President Trump startled some of his most ardent supporters in California’s San Joaquin Valley by having the Army Corps of Engineers suddenly release water from two dams, many in the region and beyond were still perplexed.

Acting on an order from Washington, the corps allowed irrigation water to flow down river channels for three days, into the network of engineered waterways that fan out among farm fields in the San Joaquin Valley. Coursing from rivers to canals to irrigation ditches, much of the water eventually made its way to retention basins, where it soaked into the ground, replenishing groundwater.

“It’s been recharged to the ground,” said Tom Barcellos, president of the Lower Tule River Irrigation District and a dairyman and farmer. That sounds good, except farmers in parts of the San Joaquin Valley typically depend on water from the two dams to irrigate crops in the summer. In other words, the release of water this time of year, when agriculture usually doesn’t require it, means that growers are likely to have less water stored in the reservoirs this summer, during a year that so far is among the area’s driest on record….

The sudden, unplanned release of water from the dams has led to criticism from some residents, water managers and members of Congress, who say the unusual discharge of water seems to have been intended to make a political statement — to demonstrate that Trump has the authority to order federal dams or pumps to send more water flowing as he directs.

“These kinds of shenanigans, they hurt smaller farmers,” said Dezaraye Bagalayos, a local water activist. Small growers have already been struggling, and the release of water from the dams means they will have less when they need it, Bagalayos said.

“The last thing in the world California water management needs is somebody like Trump calling shots when he doesn’t know how anything works,” Bagalayos said. “It’s making an already hard situation very, very difficult. We don’t have a lot of wiggle room in the state of California to be messing around with our water supply like this….”

The action occurred after Trump’s visit to fire-devastated Los Angeles, when he pledged to “open up the valves” to bring the region more water — even though reservoirs that supply Southern California’s cities were at record levels (and remain so).

As the water poured from the dams, Trumpposted a photo of one of them, saying it was “beautiful water flow that I just opened in California.” The Army Corps of Engineers said the action was “consistent with the direction” in Trump’s recent executive order, which calls for maximizing water deliveries.

Neither Trump nor the Army Corps of Engineers provided details about where the water was intended to go. But water released from the two dams serves agriculture in the eastern San Joaquin Valley. It typically does not reach the Los Angeles area, which depends instead on supplies delivered from the aqueducts of the State Water Project on the other side of the valley.

The water releases lowered the levels of the two reservoirs: Lake Success, near Porterville, had been about 20% full. It fell to 18%. Lake Kaweah, near Visalia, was roughly 21% full and similarly dropped to 19% of capacity over the weekend.

Federal records show that more than 2 billion gallons were released from the reservoirs over three days.

If anyone knows of a cure for “stupid,” please contact the White House.

Categories Accountability, California, Disruption, Environment, Ignorance, Los Angeles, Stupid, Trump

Trump’s Plan to Redevelop Gaza Reflects His History in Real Estate

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2025 //
9

Trump shocked almost everyone when he said in a press conference, alongside Israeli Prime minister Netanyahu, that he wanted to take control of Gaza, move out the Gazan population, clear the rubble, and turn the Gaza Strip into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

In response to worldwide condemnation, his aides tried to “walk back” what he said, but he said out loud what he believes. He is dangerous at all times, because no one knows for sure what he will say or do. His press secretary said that the U.S. would not pay for what Trump wants to do, nor would it send troops. In that case, Trump’s bold statement was a nothing burger. But anyone who saw the news conference heard what he said. Since he lies the way other people breathe, everyone is left to believe whatever they want.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had been thinking about this idea for a while and discussing it with aides. Some analysts thought his proposal was a negotiating ploy, meant for shock value. Others think he’s serious.

WASHINGTON—President Trump campaigned on shrinking America’s role abroad. But since taking office, he has articulated a worldview that is at times closer to expansionism than isolationism.

Trump generated global shock waves Tuesday when he said the U.S. should take long-term control of Gaza, suggesting that Palestinians should be relocated while the enclave is rebuilt into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on social media that Trump would “Make Gaza Beautiful Again.”

Taking control of the hotly contested territory would put the U.S. at the center of the world’s most complicated diplomatic and national-security conflicts, raising the prospect that Trump is signing the country up for exactly the kind of foreign entanglement he told voters he would avoid. Trump didn’t rule out sending American troops to Gaza to accomplish his goals.

“The old Republican Party of RINOs, neocons and globalists is gone. And it is never coming back,” Trump said at a 2023 GOP dinner in Florida. As he prepared to take office, Trump made clear that he wouldn’t hire national security officials that he deemed to be too closely associated with traditional neoconservative values. 

Tuesday’s announcement marked a striking shift for Trump, who described the Middle East as “blood and sand” in his first term, according to a longtime adviser. Trump is now proposing to rebuild Gaza, which his own aides say could take 10 to 15 years.

Two Trump administration officials said the idea of the Gaza takeover was formed recently, with the president running it by aides and allies in recent days. The proposal was closely held, other administration officials who work on Middle East issues said. Officials outside of Trump’s inner circle weren’t aware the idea was on the table during days of planning for the meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trump’s proposal stunned even some of his most ardent and influential supporters in the Jewish community. A longtime pro-Israel Trump fundraiser who has raised money for the president for years called the idea “insane” and questioned how it could be executed, noting this type of policy would likely take well over a year to complete with too many unknown variables for it to be done smoothly.

Netanyahu said during the press conference that one of his key goals was to ensure Gaza wouldn’t host terrorists again. Trump, he continued, took that concept “to a much higher level.”

“It is something that could change history, and it is worthwhile really pursuing this avenue….”

Trump’s Gaza proposal also shows that the president is leaning on his long history as a businessman and real-estate developer, viewing the world as a canvas in which to expand America’s influence—and cement his legacy…

Glimmers of Trump’s thinking on Gaza have surfaced in public and in private.

“You know, Gaza’s interesting, it’s a phenomenal location, on the sea, the best weather. Everything’s good. Some beautiful things could be done with it,” Trump told reporters on Jan. 20, after being sworn in. A reporter asked if he would help with rebuilding. “I might,” Trump said….

In late summer, Trump told Netanyahu in a phone call that the Gaza Strip was a prime piece of real estate and asked him to think about what kinds of hotels could be built there, according to a person with direct knowledge of the conversation. But he didn’t mention the U.S. taking it over. He also told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this fall that Ukraine would be a good spot for real-estate development, particularly mentioning the city of Odesa, a person present during the discussion said….

Trump made a similar case to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his first term, hoping the allure of hotels and development along the country’s coastlines would encourage Kim to dismantle his nuclear arsenal.

Categories Disruption, Ethics, Extremism, International, Stupid, Trump

Wall Street Journal: “America’s Dumbest Trade War”

By dianeravitch
February 2, 2025 //
25

The Wall Street Journal, owned by Rupert Murdoch, is known for its admiration for Donald Trump and its commitment to the best interests of big business and capitalism. On Friday, it published this editorial about Trump’s determination to impose tariffs on our trading partners. This action, said the editorial, is just plain dumb.

The editorial said:

President Trump will fire his first tariff salvo on Saturday against those notorious American adversaries . . . Mexico and Canada. They’ll get hit with a 25% border tax, while China, a real adversary, will endure 10%. This reminds us of the old Bernard Lewis joke that it’s risky to be America’s enemy but it can be fatal to be its friend.

Leaving China aside, Mr. Trump’s justification for this economic assault on the neighbors makes no sense. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt says they’ve “enabled illegal drugs to pour into America.” But drugs have flowed into the U.S. for decades, and will continue to do so as long as Americans keep using them. Neither country can stop it.

Drugs may be an excuse since Mr. Trump has made clear he likes tariffs for their own sake. “We don’t need the products that they have,” Mr. Trump said on Thursday. “We have all the oil you need. We have all the trees you need, meaning the lumber.”

Mr. Trump sometimes sounds as if the U.S. shouldn’t import anything at all, that America can be a perfectly closed economy making everything at home. This is called autarky, and it isn’t the world we live in, or one that we should want to live in, as Mr. Trump may soon find out.

Take the U.S. auto industry, which is really a North American industry because supply chains in the three countries are highly integrated. In 2024 Canada supplied almost 13% of U.S. imports of auto parts and Mexico nearly 42%. Industry experts say a vehicle made on the continent goes back and forth across borders a half dozen times or more, as companies source components and add value in the most cost-effective ways.

And everyone benefits. The office of the U.S. Trade Representative says that in 2023 the industry added more than $809 billion to the U.S. economy, or about 11.2% of total U.S. manufacturing output, supporting “9.7 million direct and indirect U.S. jobs.” In 2022 the U.S. exported $75.4 billion in vehicles and parts to Canada and Mexico. That number jumped 14% in 2023 to $86.2 billion, according to the American Automotive Policy Council.

American car makers would be much less competitive without this trade. Regional integration is now an industry-wide manufacturing strategy—also employed in Japan, Korea and Europe—aimed at using a variety of high-skilled and low-cost labor markets to source components, software and assembly.

The result has been that U.S. industrial capacity in autos has grown alongside an increase in imported motor vehicles, engines and parts. From 1995-2019, imports of autos, engines and parts rose 169% while U.S. industrial capacity in autos, engines and parts rose 71%.

As the Cato Institute’s Scott Lincicome puts it, the data show that “as imports go up, U.S. production goes up.” Thousands of good-paying auto jobs in Texas, Ohio, Illinois and Michigan owe their competitiveness to this ecosystem, relying heavily on suppliers in Mexico and Canada.

Tariffs will also cause mayhem in the cross-border trade in farm goods. In fiscal 2024, Mexican food exports made up about 23% of total U.S. agricultural imports while Canada supplied some 20%. Many top U.S. growers have moved to Mexico because limits on legal immigration have made it hard to find workers in the U.S. Mexico now supplies 90% of avocados sold in the U.S. Is Mr. Trump now an avocado nationalist?

Then there’s the prospect of retaliation, which Canada and Mexico have shown they know how to do for maximum political impact. In 2009 the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats ended a pilot program that allowed Mexican long-haul truckers into the U.S. as stipulated in Nafta. Mexico responded with targeted retaliation on 90 U.S. goods to pressure industries in key Congressional districts.

These included California grapes and wine, Oregon Christmas trees and cherries, jams and jellies from Ohio and North Dakota soy. When Mr. Trump imposed steel and aluminum tariffs in 2018, Mexico got results using the same tactic, putting tariffs on steel, pork products, fresh cheese and bourbon.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised to respond to U.S. tariffs on a dollar-for-dollar basis. Canada could suffer a larger GDP hit since its economy is so much smaller, but American consumers will feel the bite of higher costs for some goods.

None of this is supposed to happen under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement that Mr. Trump negotiated and signed in his first term. The U.S. willingness to ignore its treaty obligations, even with friends, won’t make other countries eager to do deals. Maybe Mr. Trump will claim victory and pull back if he wins some token concessions. But if a North American trade war persists, it will qualify as one of the dumbest in history.

Categories Accountability, Disruption, Economy, Stupid, Trump

Umair Haque: America’s Brexit Moment

By dianeravitch
February 2, 2025 //
7

Umair Haque, a London-based economist, is pessimistic about the direction of our economy., He wrote this a day before Trump announced that he was imposing 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, our neighbors and largest trading partners, and 10% tariffs on Europe and China. Haque predicts that the economic consequences for the U.S. will be devastating.

He wrote on his blog, The Issue:

Hi guys. I’m going to keep it short and sweet, because this one’s urgent. Friends, gather round, you will need to understand what I’m about to discuss.

Trump just announced tariffs of 25% on Canada and Mexico and a little less on China…

What’s going to happen?

Americans don’t have much experience with tariffs, with macroeconomic changes and transformations in general. So it’s OK not to know. And I’d expect the country to be wayyyyy more alarmed, but it isn’t, because it doesn’t understand what’s about to hit it, which is going to be…

Absolutely catastrophic.

See how people are already “shocked” and “surprised” by what’s happening (all over again)? They aren’t listening and learning. Please, take a second to understand all this, urgently and seriously. This is why I write these long essays. You are going to be affected, and I don’t want you and your loved ones to get hurt.

Chaosterity

What do tariffs of 25% mean? 

They mean that everything that’s imported from Canada and Mexico is going to rise in price, many things by a lot more than 25%. What’s imported from there? Food, vegetables, fruit, lumber, all kinds of basics. Why will it rise, in some cases more than the tariff rate? Because of course distributors and the entire value chain needs to make money in order to operate.

So we are going to see a ruinous wave of inflation. When I say ruinous, I mean it. 25%? That’s an enormous rate for a tariff. Normally, if want to discourage trade or investment, we’d set that rate at maybe 5 or 10%. Not only do these guys have no idea what they’re doing, they have no idea what kind of ruin they’re about to unleash.

In short order, Americans are going to be catastrophically more for nearly everything on the shelves. They already can’t afford it, which we know because of course credit balances are skyrocketing and living standards are falling.

But that’s only sort of the small story. This isn’t just “about tariffs,” but an approach to the economy which also appears to include attempting to lay off the entire government.

I called it Chaosterity the other day. Tariffs hurt people, and the people they hurt the most are those who have the least. In this regard, while attempting to lay off the entire government is austerity, deciding you’re going to have 25% less stuff (which is another way to think about 25% tariffs, at an equivalent price level), is going to result in chaos, a kind which most living Americans have never really seen. We’re talking 1930s level consequences.

Because what all this does next is…what blunders like this do next…they accumulate and begin cascades, vicious spirals. Let me continue.

The best lens to understand what just happened is what Britain did to itself via Brexit.

What Brexit Did to Britain

Today, just 3 in 10 Brits think it was a good idea. Back then, when it happened, the nation was gripped by this weird mania.

Economists and intellectuals would try to warn people about the effects of tariffs. Of breaking up with your biggest trading partners. For a country that imports nearly everything.

Sound familiar?

What happened next to Britain? It suffered the longest, steepest, sharpest fall in living standards in history.

But even that’s not really the worst part. It’s economy is shrinking, and it will never recover. To what it was before Brexit. That is because of course now it has to reach a much smaller equilibrium, since it has less investment, capital of all kinds, whether financial or human, less trade, less commerce.

Sound familiar?

Today, British incomes have stagnated so long and hard that people wonder why they’re earning such pittances. The differences are stark, and almost unbelievable. The same jobs in America will pay 3 to 5 times as much, and in Europe, 2 to 3 times as much.

Britain turned itself into a much, much poorer country. It will never recover. The losses are now permanent.

Meanwhile, because it’s economy now has had to become much smaller, it’s once vaunted social contract is in tatters. The NHS is dying. The BBC is already dead. The streets are full of trash and crime, local authorities are bankrupt, and there’s a sense that nothing works, and there is no future. 

There isn’t.

The government’s plan, to “kickstart growth”? To build…another runway at Heathrow. Go ahead and laugh. This is what’s left—this level of incompetence and this paucity of vision.

Brexit cost Britain everything. It destroyed its future so severely that we don’t have a wordfor “rich country that made itself poor and a pariah.”

Go to Paris, compared to London, and the streets are clean, people are happy, and things are generally flourishing. In London? People dress in modern-day rags, the pain and despair are etched on their faces, and the poverty is everywhere.

This is what happens next.

Open the link to continue reading.

Categories Disruption, Economy, Extremism, Inequality, Stupid, Trump

Trump Administration Rescinds Funding Freeze

By dianeravitch
January 29, 2025 //
14

A maxim: Where Trump goes, chaos reigns.

The across-the-board federal funding freeze imposed by the Trump administration was withdrawn, according to this report at MSNBC.

The freeze was announced, then modified, and today it was withdrawn. It caused widespread chaos, as numerous programs were confused about whether or not they had funding. Red states, where federal funding is concentrated, were hit hardest.

The New York Times added details:

Grant freeze: The White House rescinded an order on Wednesday that froze trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans and sparked mass confusion across the country, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter. A federal judge had temporarily blocked it on Tuesday…

The initial directive interrupted the Medicaid system that provides health care to millions of low-income Americans and sent schools, hospitals, nonprofits, research companies and law enforcement agencies scrambling to understand if they had lost their financial support from the federal government.

A federal judge in the District of Columbia on Tuesday afternoon temporarily blocked the order in response to a lawsuit filed by Democracy Forward, a liberal organization that argued that the directive violated the First Amendment and a law governing how executive orders are to be rolled out.

On Wednesday, Matthew J. Vaeth, the acting director for the Office of Management and Budget, sent a notification to federal agencies notifying them that memo freezing aid had been “rescinded.”

“If you have questions about implementing the President’s executive orders, please contact your agency general counsel,” Mr. Vaeth said in the notification.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Extremism, Funding, Stupid, Trump

Jeff Tiedrich: This Week in Stupid

By dianeravitch
January 18, 2025 //
28

I’m posting this latest missive from Jeff Tiedrich because it made me laugh out loud. I once again apologize for his generous use of words I don’t allow on this site. But he uses the F word to make you laugh and to emphasize his point. The next four years will give him plenty to work with. I subscribe to his blog. You should consider doing so.

He writes:

as another stupid week comes to a close here in America, let’s look back at some of the highlights.

monday: who would Jesus infect 

it’s been a hot minute, so let’s check in on America’s new christofascist overlords. here’s newly-elected Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita. 

“with your help, together, we will make Indiana a truly free state … where we can raise our children as God intended, without interference by woke schools, doctors or courts … where we are no longer vaxxed or masked.”

sure, absolutely. it’s a well-known fact that Jesus was all about spreading preventable diseases. it’s right there in the Sermon on the Mount: blessed are the science-deniers, for they will choke to death on their own infectious mucus.

I’m no scholar, but I’m pretty sure that there’s nothing in the Bible about vaccinations — but as long as we’re going to adhere to “God’s intentions,” here’s one he’s pretty specific about.

if you wear linen and wool at the same time, you should be fucking slaughtered.

Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.

that’s good old Leviticus 19:19. now here’s Leviticus 19:27.

Ye shall not round off the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard.

what do you have to say for yourself, Todd, you infidel? because it looks to me like you’re definitely marring the corners of thy beard.

that’s what I love about these cristofascist hypocrites. they cherry-pick the Bible to prove whatever oppressive notion they want to inflict on the rest of us — but when it comes to actually adhering to the laws that are right there in the Bible, it’s fucking crickets.

tuesday: hly fcking sht, lern hw to fcking spel

Tuesday was Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearing, and Senate Republicans brought all the props out in support of his candidacy — because nothing says I’m a serious legislator whose issues should be taken seriously more thanmisspelling the word military.

in their own defense, Senate Republicans had been out all night getting hammered with Piss-Drunk Pete, and were too hung over the next morning to notice. 

wednesday: I download Supreme Court decisions for the idiocy

during oral arguments regarding a Texas law requiring age verification in order to access porn sites, Fishin’ Trip Sammy Alito raised a cogent question.

“Justice Alito is asking if websites like Pornhub have ‘essays, modern day Gore Vidal, stuff like that’ like the old Playboy.”

um, who wants to tell him?

I suppose on the one hand, it’s admirable that Steal Stoppin’ Sammy should be so ignorant of the online porn experience that he’d ask such a ludicrous question — but on the other hand: why the fuck are ancient white men allowed to rule on technologies they’re too out-of-touch to understand?

remember the old “the internet is a series of tubes” meme? here’s where it came from: an old white man who had no clue what he was gibbering about.

back in 2006, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens was railing against streaming services. he wanted to shut them down. he was convinced they were going to break the internet — because, as he explained it, the internet is “a series of tubes.” here is exactly what Senator Stevens said.

“And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It’s not a big truck. It’s a series of tubes. And if you don’t understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it’s going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.”

these people should not be setting policy affecting millions of Americans. they should be enjoying a nice, hot cup of shut the fuck up in a managed care facility.

oh, and for the record, “I download porn for the articles” is a joke I made twelve years ago. 

you’re welcome.

thursday: mirth of an abomination 

oh frabjous day, the toxic incels are at it again.

pro tip: posting shit like this is proof you’ve failed as a human being.

also, can you fucking idiots get your stories straight?

just two weeks ago, the Space Nazi was extolling the virtues of c-sections — promising that if women would opt out of giving birth the old-fashioned way, all of us could have brains as big as his.

“There are certainly other factors at play, but heavy use of c-sections allows for a larger brain, as brain size has historically been limited by birth canal diameter.”

so which is it, incels?

friday: stand back, Rand Paul’s about to say something stupid 

while writing these daily posts, there’s a line find myself I using over and over: “it’s so easy to solve all the world’s problems when you have no fucking clue what you’re talking about.” the reason I keep repeating it, is because Republicans keep proving it’s true.

here’s failed wig model Rand Paul, explaining how he knows more about water management than all the water managers. 

“I see these homes burning and I’m like wow, if they just had a generator and a hose, you start sucking the water out of the The Pacific Ocean. but you can do more than that. you can pump it and put it in cisterns up in the hills a mile or two in. why don’t they take the ocean water and put it in cisterns have a bunch of water ready when a wildfire shows up? once again, bad local government.”

hey everybody, Rand Paul just invented reservoirs. that’s some Nobel Prizewinning stuff right there.

this fucking arrogant asshole, lecturing Los Angeles on why don’t you just have reservoirs? 

you nincompoop, Los Angeles has reservoirs. plenty of them. and they were all full when the fires started. that’s not the issue. Rand Paul is conveniently forgetting about the part where LA was dealing with literal hurricanes made out of fire that were too massive and fast-moving to control or contain — by any fire department, anywhere.

talking out of your ass from the floor of the Senate is easy. actually dealing with problems is hard — and Republicans are proving it every day.

saturday: ?

hey, it’s still morning as I sit here writing this. but give it time, I guarantee you that some dipshit wingnut is going to do something stupid before the day is over. you can set your watch to it.

everyone is entitled to my own opinion is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

do you have a nomination for This Week in Stupid? email me at jefftiedrich@gmail.com. thanks!

Categories Extremism, Humor, Ignorance, Stupid
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