Chaos and Turmoil 😱✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️😱

Convulsions:  The equity markets continue to convulse. Yesterday, trading on hope, rumor, and desperation, the Dow, an imperfect economic and market measure but one that suffices right now, ratcheted up more than 1500 points before nosediving again, closing down 320 points. With Trump’s tariffs on China increasing to 104% today and a report now that China is increasing their tariffs on our goods to 84% while also maybe, just maybe seeking a “dialogue” with the administration, expect to see more of the same today fueled by the rambling, retributive orange one now warning that he’s planning to attack the pharmaceutical industry next. To that end futures are already down around 600 points Reports are that banking and hedge fund titans are seriously perturbed, apparently, they had no idea that the candidate they fully supported would actually follow through on his repeatedly promised tariffs.  They’re kind of freaked that despite all the money they threw his way, Trump’s ignoring their pleas to stop the tariff barrage. Doge Bro Elon Musk, Trump’s biggest contributor, who given his multi-billionaire status has lost more than most, has ramped up his attacks on Trump’s tariff guru Peter Navarro, calling him a “moron” who is “dumber than a retardo, dumber than a sack of bricks.” Putting aside the retard slur and childish taunting, Musk’s assessment is spot on though his targeting of Navarro rather than decision maker Trump is both revealing and notable. In any case, Elon’s awakening to Trump’s malicious insanity is late and self-serving. He’s supposed to be a genius, why did it take him so long to figure out what the rest of us have known for years?  Anyone who says that they know what’s next is lying and/or delusional.  Trump’s mendacious press secretary Karoline Leavitt who described Musk and Navarro’s tiff as just “boys being boys” claims that dozens of countries have approached Trump to negotiate individual trade deals and likely a few have. The hope beyond hope is that Trump will cite a deal with one or more of them, declare victory and do something to calm the markets and save the economy, though the ship for saving the economy from recession or, worse yet, stagflation may have already sailed. Hope springs eternal, but the way things are going it could take an eternity to get there. 

Move Over Titanic: Unfortunately, the economy is only the tip of the iceberg. Trump is now calling for more logging in the country’s national forests.  He’s issued a new emergency order rolling back environmental protections on almost 60% of the national forests because who needs environmental protections anyway?  His so-called emergency is self-inflicted.  The lumber is needed to compensate for the lumber we will no longer be getting from Canada.  Apparently, in addition to snoozing through economics, Trump failed to pay attention in science, missing the part about trees producing oxygen as a byproduct of photosynthesis. As to that oxygen, forget about keeping what’s left of it clean because yesterday Trump issued an executive order intended to boost the mining and burning of coal.  He plans to facilitate that by waiving environmental laws that “discriminate” against the coal industry, you know the rules that protect us all from air containing black soot.  Naturally, the promotion of asthma and cancer inducing pollution will be accompanied by less health care.  Nepo RFK, following the orders of the Doge Bro and Trump continues to dismantle the health infrastructure and really, if no one is collecting data about mortality and morbidity how will we know that more are getting sick and dying.  Unfortunately for RFK, he hasn’t been able to hide all the measles cases that continue to erupt.  After publicly admitting that the best way to stop measles is the MMR vaccine and then getting skewered by his anti vax followers, he backtracked to express his appreciation for the the anti-vax doctors who’ve been pushing steroids and antibiotics as a measles panacea. Perhaps to divert attention from the growing measles problem, RFK is now going after fluoridated water.  Forget about making America healthy again, he’s now promoting cavities and it’s not just cavities, it’s all the other health calamities that accompany teeth infections especially among those who can’t afford dental care.

Law and Lack Thereof: Yesterday, the Supreme Court said that the administration does not have to comply with a lower-court order directing it to rehire thousands of fired federal workers. On Monday, the Court lifted a judge’s order prohibiting the administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport suspected criminals and gang members though it did say that the deported were entitled to due process.  SCOTUS also allowed the administration to proceed with its plans to freeze funding for teachers.  In addition, Chief Justice Roberts granted the Justice Department’s request for more time to litigate whether the US must return Kilmar Garcia, the man who was deported to the heinous El Salvador prison camp as a result of an admitted administrative error.  That means there’s still a chance that Garcia is returned to the US which is what’s supposed to and usually does happen when someone is “accidentally” removed.  One piece of good news, a federal judge ordered the White House to let Associated Press journalists back to the Oval Office and onto Air Force One, ruling it was unlawful to block the news service in a dispute over its choice of words. However, the judge stayed his decision to give the White House time to appeal and an AP reporter and photographer were turned back from joining a reporting pool on a presidential motorcade early Tuesday evening, almost two hours after the decision was issued.  In other disturbing legal news, the pardon lawyer who was fired for refusing to sign off on giving Mel Gibson back his gun privileges, testified in front of a Democrats only committee that the DOJ sent armed US Marshalls to her house to discourage her testimony.  She was on the road when she heard that the Marshalls were enroute and was able to acknowledge receipt of their “message” to stop them from actually arriving at her house where her teenage son was home alone. Think about that, our DOJ sending armed officers to intimate a former US Attorney who had refused to kowtow to Trump’s plan to rearm Gibson who’d lost his gun rights due to a domestic violence conviction.  Lastly, as he often does Trump said the quiet part out loud yesterday, admitting that those law firms paying him bigly bucks had done nothing wrong.  He said that while expressing his glee at intimidating them into giving him the moola. And though Tax Day is right around the corner, don’t expect to see the acting head of the IRS hanging about.  She joined two of her predecessors by resigning last night,  Her beef, the agreement reached between the IRS and immigration authorities to share what’s supposed to be private information about undocumented migrants.     

More:  Add Cornell and Northwestern to the growing list of universities losing government funding purportedly to punish them for facilitating anti-Semitic activities on their campuses.  Anti-Semitism is very bad but using anti-Semitism as the justification to strip “too” liberal educational and research institutions of their funding is so very far from being a good thing, if anything the defunding fosters more anti-Semitism and hate.   Could that be the objective? Divide and conquer? The future is bleak. 

#BringThemAllHomeNow