trump

An Unbiased Look At Trump’s Tariffs

Common wisdom has it that tariffs in general are bad for trade. They’re old-fashioned. The word “regressive” is thrown around by people who either aren’t certain what it means or really shouldn’t be.

And, in general, the common wisdom is quite correct: Tariffs, as a rule, are bad for business, which means they’re bad for the economy.

Mind you, most business experts will also be happy to tell you why exceptions ought to be made in order to protect their industry, but decidedly no other. Therein can be found the roots of a dirty little secret that most citizens don’t know about, most political partisans don’t care about, and most major media outlets didn’t bother to find out about.

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How To Begin?

Whenever I begin one of these with “I personally despise Donald Trump”, his supporters immediately tune out. “Another mindless liberal” is one of the nicest things I’ve been called. It’s a little sad, because the next word from me is likely to be “but”.

Whenever I begin one of these with “I personally despise Donald Trump, but”, the legion of his haters collectively throw up their hands. “Another Nazi lover” is usually truncated to “Another Nazi”.

And so it goes.

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Tariffs: Some Perspective

It’s easy to quote a simple internet meme and use it to point to Trump’s tariffs to call him an idiot. Thanks to memes, I now know that his list was generated by internet domain, that it’s a formula based on trade balance, that they’re effectively arbitrary numbers, and that it’s all theater. Thanks to a quick glance at my Robinhood account, I can tell that his tariff talk has wiped out a trillion dollars of other people’s money overnight (and, on paper, $200 of mine).

So, yes, I have cause to be irritated at the man. So do you. Fair enough — so far as it goes.

BUT.

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First Amendment Limits

TL;DR: It has some.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

You’re sick of reading about Elon Musk and the App Formerly Known As Twitter. I know this through observation and extrapolation. If it’s not true of you, you’re an exception; congratulations on being thus exceptional.

Either way though, I won’t take up much of your valuable time.

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Traitor Tulsi?

If you’re paying attention, you’ve heard the rumors: Putin shill, friend to dictators, traitor to her political party, spy for America’s enemies.

Which is, I gotta say, totally nuts. No, not just the spy bit — all of it, beginning to end. For anyone who’s followed her career, she’s been nothing but consistent, and she wears her heart, and her convictions, on her sleeve for all to see.

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So There’s This Election Tomorrow…

A while ago, I decided that continuing to talk about Donald Trump would only keep giving him free press. I find him odious enough that the last thing I want to do is give him anything for free, so I simply stopped.

However, it’s now election time, and enough people have asked me that, finally, I figure it’s both safe and useful to provide the best information I can about what’s going to happen, in as unbiased a fashion as practicable, and without saying “I don’t know” too much.

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Joe Biden Is Not Evil

This headline by itself will draw hate from millions of pro-Palestine folks, which just goes to show: partisanship is the death of thought. Many of them won’t even know what the Romeo is or why it’s important.

(If you’re curious, I wrote about it a couple of months back. Go — read and learn.)

But that’s not what I’m here to talk about, at least not today.

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They’re Stealing the Truth

“Trump said it, so it must be a lie!”

That’s really not a terrible axiom. Oh, it’s not 100% accurate, but most of what he’s said over the years has ranged from mild exaggeration to only true in certain circumstances all the way up to a bald-faced whopper. He repeats the lie often and loudly, and some will come to believe him — and others automatically disbelieve.

Herein, however, comes a problem: Sometimes, people end up disbelieving what he says even though there’s some truth to it.

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Why Are You…?

People keep asking me (online, for the most part) why I’m on this side or that. I tell them I’m not, and do my best to explain, and they remain confused. It goes like this:

“Why are you defending Israel? They’re committing genocide!”
“I’m not talking about genocide. I’m talking about [insert abstract topic].”
“That doesn’t matter! Israel is evil!”

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