I’m going to be scathing in my critique because these people are both dishonest and incompetent and deserve to be called out on it.
Here’s their formula:
It’s a ridiculously simplistic formula.
First, a stylistic quibble. What is up with those asterisks in the denominator? I’ll give the authors the benefit of the doubt and assume that they wanted the formula to be understandable by people who aren’t familiar with standard math notation, in which the juxtaposition of variables indicates multiplication. But to see it written that way in an official document is just… weird.
The i subscripts in the formula just indicate that the formula is to be applied to one country at a time — country i. I’ll therefore omit the ‘i’s from the rest of the discussion.
∆𝜏 is the amount by which the tariff currently being placed on that particular country should change (according to the Trump administration bozos) in order to drive the bilateral trade deficit to zero. In other words, 𝜏 (the existing rate) + ∆𝜏 (the change in rate) would be the correct final rate (according to the formula) to achieve the dubious goal of a trade balance.
The inanity of insisting on bilateral trade balances
We’re off to a bad start already, because the notion that every bilateral trade deficit should be zero is ridiculous on its face. Let’s look at a simplified example. Suppose Malawi sells us only mangoes, and the US (henceforth ‘we’, since I’m American) sells them only air conditioners. In order for the trade deficit to be zero, we need to buy the same dollar amount in mangoes that they buy in air conditioners, and we should adjust the tariffs we impose on Malawi until that happens. Why is this desirable? Why should the amount of mangoes be linked to the amount of air conditioners? Who the hell knows? It’s just Trump’s idiotic obsession, and it makes no sense.
To make the stupidity even more obvious, think of an analogous situation. Ernesto sells tacos from a taco truck, and George runs a landscaping business. George occasionally buys tacos from Ernesto, and Ernesto hires George to mow his lawn. Suppose Ernesto pays more to George each month than George spends buying tacos from Ernesto. Is Ernesto being cheated? Is he subsidizing George? No and no. George gets every taco he pays for, and Ernesto gets his lawn mown on schedule. It would be ridiculous to say that either of them is being cheated, and ridiculous to say that the goal should be to make the amounts even.
Why is Trump obsessed with trade deficits? It’s because he is confused enough to believe that the existence of a bilateral trade deficit — a trading deficit with a particular country, Malawi in my example — means that they are cheating us and that we’re subsidizing them. He actually believes that we are just handing over the money, getting nothing in return. In reality, we get every frikkin’ mango we pay for, and they get every air conditioner they pay for. No one is being cheated, and to demand that the dollar amounts should match is idiotic and pointless.
Trump actually declares in his executive order that trade deficits are a “national emergency”. He does this because he doesn’t have the authority to impose tariffs unless it’s a national emergency. Otherwise, the job falls to Congress, where it belongs. Trump is lying about the supposed national emergency.
The formula
According to the USTR statement, the x in the formula is the dollar value of what we export to a particular country, while m is the dollar value of what we import from them. The numerator, x – m, is therefore equal to the trade imbalance. If x is bigger than m, then the difference is positive, and we are running a trade surplus. If x is less than m, then x – m is negative, and we have a trade deficit. But note that they have it backwards in the formula: it should be m – x, not x – m. Why? Because the denominator is positive. If both the numerator and denominator are positive, as they would be in the case of a trade surplus, the formula would deliver a ∆𝜏 that is positive. In other words, the formula as written would actually increase the tariffs for the countries with whom we have a trade surplus, and it would decrease the tariffs for countries with whom we have a trade deficit. The formula therefore punishes the (supposedly) good guys and rewards the (supposedly) bad ones, which is opposite to the administration’s intentions. One more indication of their clown car incompetence.
They could easily have corrected the formula if they were aware of the error. Just put a negative sign in front of the formula, or swap x and m, or redefine x and m as the amounts exported and imported by the other country, instead of the amounts exported and imported by the US. Any one of those three would fix the problem, but no.
Let’s assume that we have corrected that mistake for them and that the numerator now equals the amount of the trade deficit, not the surplus. What about the denominator? Well, it just so happens that the values they chose for 𝜀 and 𝜓 are 4 and 0.25, respectively. Those multiply to 1, thus canceling each other. How convenient. These charlatans actually and blatantly chose the values so that they would cancel out, instead of using the most accurate numbers they could find in the literature. They cheated.
After that suspiciously convenient choice of parameters, the formula is now just ∆𝜏 = trade deficit divided by total imports:
Do they actually apply this formula? No. They massage its output even more. They divide ∆𝜏 by two, for no good reason. That means that for the formula to match the actual tariffs, they should multiply the denominator by 2. They fail to do that, as you’d expect. Why 2? My hypothesis is that even those dunces realized that the numbers they were getting from the formula were ridiculously large, and dividing by 2 was a way to get them down to a range that they considered reasonable. More number fudging with no theoretical justification.
Next problem: according to the corrected formula, ∆𝜏 should be negative in the case of trade surpluses. That is, we should decrease the tariffs on imports from those countries. If the existing tariff rate is small enough, it should even go negative, according to the formula, in order to balance our trade with that country. Trump doesn’t like that, so he has arbitrarily declared that everyone will pay a minimum of 10%, whether there’s a trade deficit or a trade surplus. In other words, the policy, which is already misguided, is also unfair — it says that it’s OK for the US to screw other countries by imposing high tariffs, even if they’re doing the “right” thing and allowing us to run a trade surplus with them.
The actual rates
Here are the charts spelling out the actual tariff rates.
The chart labels them “Reciprocal Tariffs”, but that is a lie, since the formula doesn’t take into account the tariff rate charged by the other countries on our exports to them. It’s completely missing from the formula. They aren’t reciprocal tariffs, they’re misguided tariffs in response to trade deficits, and they punish US importers instead of the countries selling us those goods and services.
The label on the middle column is wrong for the same reason, and it’s even further wrong because it depicts a bilateral trade deficit as a quantifier of “currency manipulation and trade barriers”, which it isn’t. We can run a bilateral trade deficit for no other reason than that Americans want more of what the other country is selling us than they want from us. That’s not “currency manipulation and trade barriers”, and the Trump administration is dishonest for trying to sell it that way.
The numbers in the middle column are apparently those that come straight out of the formula. You can tell, because the tariffs that are actually being imposed by the US are just the middle column divided by 2. That’s the arbitrary factor of 2 I mentioned above. The only exceptions are in those cases where dividing by 2 would leave a less than 10% tariff, in which case the tariff is set to 10%. Gotta make sure that everyone gets screwed at least that much.
The US Trade Representative’s explanation
Now some excerpts from the USTR statement. The very first paragraph:
Reciprocal tariffs are calculated as the tariff rate necessary to balance bilateral trade deficits between the U.S. and each of our trading partners. This calculation assumes that persistent trade deficits are due to a combination of tariff and non-tariff factors that prevent trade from balancing. Tariffs work through direct reductions of imports.
Well, duh. The phrase “tariff and non-tariff factors” covers literally every possible factor in the entire world. Yes, there are actual reasons that we buy more in mangoes from Malawi than they buy from us in air conditioners. Therefore we should conclude that we’re getting ripped off?
While individually computing the trade deficit effects of tens of thousands of tariff, regulatory, tax and other policies in each country is complex, if not impossible, their combined effects can be proxied by computing the tariff level consistent with driving bilateral trade deficits to zero.
Not by any reasonable person. You need to do the homework before making policy decisions that will affect the entire world economy. If they want less of what we’re selling than we want of what they’re selling, that can lead to a trade deficit, independent of all the factors they list above.
This doesn’t mean that trade practices can’t be unfair, but it does mean that to assume something nefarious is going on merely because we’re running a bilateral trade deficit is stupid.
If trade deficits are persistent because of tariff and non-tariff policies and fundamentals, then the tariff rate consistent with offsetting these policies and fundamentals is reciprocal and fair.
No. If we like Malawian mangoes more than the Malawians like our air conditioners, nothing is broken. Nothing is unfair. No reason to blindly punish the Malawians. It just means that American demand for Malawian mangoes is greater than Malawian demand for American air conditioners. No big deal.
A case could be made for nudging the US’s global trade deficit — which is the aggregate trade deficit we’re running with all of our trading partners put together — toward zero, but trying to eliminate every bilateral trade deficit is bonkers. These people are clueless.
Consider an environment in which the U.S. levies a tariff of rate τ_i on country i and ∆τ_i reflects the change in the tariff rate. Let ε<0 represent the elasticity of imports with respect to import prices…
Right there they say that ε < 0, but a few sentences later they assign it a value of 4. The last time I checked, 4 was greater than 0, not less. Their sloppiness is consistent, at least. What is wrong with these folks?
let φ>0 represent the passthrough from tariffs to import prices, let m_i>0 represent total imports from country i, and let x_i>0 represent total exports. Then the decrease in imports due to a change in tariffs equals ∆τ_i*ε*φ*m_i<0. Assuming that offsetting exchange rate and general equilibrium effects are small enough to be ignored, the reciprocal tariff that results in a bilateral trade balance of zero satisfies:
As noted earlier, they have the numerator backwards. It should be positive for a trade deficit, not negative, in order for ∆𝜏 to be positive, which represents an increase in tariff rates.
To calculate reciprocal tariffs, import and export data from the U.S. Census Bureau for 2024. Parameter values for ε and φ were selected. The price elasticity of import demand, ε, was set at 4.
Which inside the Trump administration is less than 0, lol. And how convenient that εφ multiplies to 1, as noted above.
Recent evidence suggests the elasticity is near 2 in the long run (Boehm et al., 2023), but estimates of the elasticity vary. To be conservative, studies that find higher elasticities near 3-4 (e.g., Broda and Weinstein 2006; Simonovska and Waugh 2014; Soderbery 2018) were drawn on. The elasticity of import prices with respect to tariffs, φ, is 0.25.
It wasn’t to be conservative. It was to fudge the numbers so that the product εφ came out to be 1. And picking a value of 4 for elasticity isn’t “being conservative” in the sense of “this value is more likely to be correct”. It’s conservative in the sense of “we’d better make this number big because otherwise the tariffs will be so outrageously huge that everyone will see that we’re idiots.”
Think about it. They want φ to be small (whether or not the evidence supports it), because they want to maintain the fiction that other countries will mostly absorb the tariffs and that importers and retail customers will shoulder less of the burden and therefore experience less inflation. On the other hand, a small φ balloons the value of ∆𝜏 to ridiculous levels. So they set 𝜀 to 4 to bring ∆𝜏 down, even while acknowledging that the true value of 𝜀 is closer to 2.
The recent experience with U.S. tariffs on China has demonstrated that tariff passthrough to retail prices was low (Cavallo et al, 2021).
I haven’t verified that, but either way I would sure like to see the actual number. Why didn’t they include it? Is it really 0.25? In any case, the question of pass-through to retail prices is irrelevant when you’re trying to determine which country is absorbing the cost of the tariffs. It’s the pass-through factor to importers that is relevant, and that is close to 1, even if the pass-though to retail customers is less. That means that US importers are bearing the cost of the tariffs and passing some of that cost on to consumers. It’s inflationary, and it’s a tax by the US government on US importers, not a tax on foreign countries. Which contradicts Trump’s whole rationale.
The reciprocal tariffs were left-censored at zero.
No, they were “left-censored” at 10, as you can see by looking at the charts. 10 is the minimum tariff you’ll see in the third column of the charts.
Higher minimum rates might be necessary to limit heterogeneity in rates and reduce transshipment.</p
No explanation of why “heterogeneity in rates” is to be avoided, and no comment on the fact that it isn’t avoided, given the large range of new tariff rates in the third column of the charts. That means there’s still plenty of incentive for transshipment. Take Vietnam, for instance, with a new rate of 46%. There’s a *lot* of incentive for them to transship through one of the countries with a 10% rate.
Tariff rates range from 0 to 99 percent.
There is no inherent limit. Tariffs could be 100%, 180%, or 2100%. 99% is an arbitrary limit. Tariffs could even be negative in a perverse world, in which case the government would be giving importers a bonus for importing more and nudging us toward a trade deficit. Obviously that wouldn’t happen in practice, but my point is that the 99% is arbitrary, and anyone who thinks tariffs are limited to being less than 100% doesn’t understand tariffs.
The unweighted average across deficit countries is 50 percent, and the unweighted average across the entire globe is 20 percent.
It’s pointless to state the unweighted average. An unweighted average is really just a weighted average with all of the weights set to 1. That gives Liechtenstein equal weight with China, which is stupid. Our trade volume with China is some 1,770 times as great as our trade volume with Liechtenstein, but these geniuses are weighting them evenly and presenting the average as if it had some kind of significance. Morons.
Weighted by imports, the average across deficit countries is 45 percent, and the average across the entire globe is 41 percent. Standard deviations range from 20.5 to 31.8 percentage points.
Here, they tell us that the import-weighted average of tariffs is 41 percent. Combine that with their assumed pass-through rate of 0.25. meaning that exporters in other countries will shoulder 75% of the tariff burden. That’s unrealistic and it clashes with the actual data, but even if you take the Trumpers at their word and assume that only 25% of the additional cost due to tariffs is passed to importers, that’s still over 10%, because 0.25 * 41% is greater than 10%. 10% import inflation! So much for Trump’s campaign promise: “I’ll reduce prices on day one.” Idiot.
Good job, Trump supporters. By voting for him, you put power in the hands of these dishonest and incompetent economic doofuses.
colewd:
Of course he did! He requested federal help from Biden before the inauguration and from Trump after the inauguration. He acted on behalf of the people of California. That’s what he’s supposed to do. He’s the governor. It’s his job.
Did you even read the quote I gave you from the LA police chief?
The police chief did not want federal involvement. He did not request federal involvement. Trump forced it on him, knowingly breaking the law in the process.
The police chief isn’t an idiot. He had other options, and he knew — as is obvious to anyone with a lick of sense — that sending in troops would inflame the situation.
Oh, wait — who am I to question the Dear Leader’s decision? The police chief is merely the guy on the ground, in LA, coordinating the response. He knows nothing about the situation. Newsom is the governor of the state. He knows nothing about California. The Dear Leader, who knows more about everything than anybody, is the one who should be making the decisions. He understands what’s going on in LA far better than the police chief or the governor. Sure, he’s 3,000 miles away, but despite the distance, he grasps it in a way that the police chief and governor could never match. That’s how impressive he is! We can trust him; he is far wiser than us, and he always, always, acts in the best interests of the people. When he breaks the law or violates the Constitution, it’s because he loves us and knows what’s best for us. He’s not going to let the law, or the Constitution, or a bunch of corrupt judges stand in his way. That’s how much he loves and cares for us. I was way out of line for questioning him.
keiths,
Your list are bald assertions that you are spinning to support a narrative.
How much jail time have they spent? Was this less than a typical assailant if we compare like crimes? These are important details and again you speak in generalisations and not real facts. This is characteristic of living in the echo chamber.
It is possible that these pardons were inappropriate however you have not come close to making this case.
colewd:
You haven’t refuted a single one of them, despite being asked repeatedly to do so. Yet you’ve claimed that I have “Trump Derangement Syndrome”, am “unable to filter bias”, and that I am relying on “anecdote” and “suspect sources”. You’ve characterized my list as “a conglomeration of antidote [sic] and spin that is propaganda” and “bald assertions that you are spinning to support a narrative”.
If that’s all true, then it should be easy for you to show that I’m wrong. Here’s my list again, since we are on a new comment page:
Have at it. Stop stalling. Tell me what I got wrong. Expose me for the TDS-deranged propagandist that I am.
To date, you haven’t disputed a single thing I’ve said, including the fact that Trump pardoned people who were convicted of assaulting police officers on January 6. The only thing you’ve done is to try to justify Trump’s pardon, first by complaining about how other January 6 defendants were treated (which made no sense), and since that didn’t work, you are now suggesting that the assailants’ sentences were unfair compared to others who committed “like crimes” and that Trump was just trying to rectify this injustice. That’s bullshit. Trump didn’t examine these on a case-by-case basis. He issued a blanket pardon for over 1,500 people. A blanket pardon for anyone convicted of a January 6-related crime.* Commit a violent crime for Donald Trump, and he pardons you. But if someone spits at a soldier in LA,Trump says “they will be hit harder than they have ever been hit before”.
Trump doesn’t give a shit about justice. You should be ashamed of yourself for supporting him, Bill.
* Except for 14 people who were members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. They received commutations, not pardons, but they walked out of jail just the same.
keiths,
I understand one pardon extended to child pornography, because it was discovered under a J6 warrant.
colewd,
Yes, federal help was necessary, and requested. But Trump’s opening the sluices was performative nonsense, and his criticisms of Newsom petty and irrelevant.
Do you agree that gutting Park and Forest services risks worse fires? Are you OK with opening them up for development and exploitation?
That’s ironic, given Trump’s greed – pushing family bitcoin, accepting gifts for personal use.
keiths,
This is essentially your argument. Bald assertions with no substance. We don’t mutually learn anything with this type discussion.
On the question of pardons I did some research and agree there were a couple of pardons that were questionable.
Allan Miller,
I have not opinion or expertise here. Can you expand on this?
colewd:
Well, that’s progress, though I think ‘questionable’ is an understatement.
Bill, you just confirmed that I was correct when I said Trump “pardons people who assault police officers”. Now you’re saying that my list is nothing but “bald assertions with no substance”. Does that make sense to you?
It’s the one and only item on my list that you have actually addressed, and you confirmed that I got it right. How is something that is true, is backed up by evidence, and has been personally confirmed by you a “bald assertion with no substance”?
That sounds like an excuse for bailing out of the discussion before I confront you with the other items on my list. Am I right?
There’s plenty for you to learn from this discussion if you’re willing and brave enough to listen, Bill, but you aren’t going to like what you hear. Cult members don’t like to be told the truth about their leaders.
Allan, to colewd:
colewd:
Some news articles for you:
Why the water Trump ordered released in California won’t help Los Angeles firefighting:
President Trump’s Proposed Budget Takes Axe to National Park Service
‘Crazy’: Forest Service cuts ignite fear, fury over wildfire risks
Trump’s top general just undercut his ‘invasion’ claims:
This is no small matter, because the law in question (the Alien Enemies Act) allows such deportations only under these specific circumstances:
As General Caine said, there is no such invasion. Trump is lying about that because he is breaking the law and needs an excuse for doing so.
It’s reminiscent of his “justification” for the tariffs against Canada. The president does not have the power to impose tariffs under ordinary circumstances. That authority rests with Congress, as stated in Article I of the Constitution:
Trump wanted to violate the Constitution (that pesky document that keeps getting in his way — it’s so annoying), but he needed an excuse, so his administration seized on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which allows the president to impose tariffs in order to address a national emergency:
What was the “national emergency” that Trump ginned up to justfy the tariffs against Canada? Illegal border crossings and fentanyl. What are the facts?Fentanyl seizures at the Canadian border were only 0.2% of the total, and migrant apprehensions only 1.5%, making Trump’s “national emergency” justification laughable.
Bill, do you think the president should respect and follow the Constituion and the laws of the United States, or is it OK for him to violate them and lie about it since he is the Dear Leader and clearly knows what’s best for
himthe country?I don’t know much about law, but I remember a different Republican president sending the Army to oppose the policy of a democratic governor.
Hmm, let’s see: Trump NFTs, Trump golden sneakers, Trump Bibles, Trump meme coin scam, Trump watches, Trump guitars, Trump cologne… but Newsom is the corrupt one focused on raising money? Jesuschrist, Bill, I don’t know how to do it, but you manage to outdo yourself everyday with the dumb shit.
petrushka:
Right. In that instance Eisenhower invoked the Insurrection Act, which is a different law from the one that the Trump administration is citing to justify federalizing the California National Guard and sending them to Los Angeles. Here’s the relevant section of the Insurrection Act:
Court orders for desegregation were being defied, and equal protection was being denied to the affected students, so it sounds like the requirements of the law were met.
Enforcing the desegregation of schools (having been ruled unconstitutional) and the deportation of Latinos without due process (despite having been declared unconstitutional) being exactly the same thing.
It is hard to fathom America right now. Vanity parades? Suppression of peaceful protest? (Not condoning riot). Calling for a journalist to be disciplined for criticism? Deportation for a critical op-ed? Detention of citizens by the Army? Due process set aside?
That Second Amendment thing. The rising up against a tyrannical government. How’s that even supposed to work?
Anyway, Happy Trump Day!
At which point do we condone riots, though? Honestly, I’m not sure there’s a way back from this that doesn’t involve a fucking revolution at this point. The “where they go low, we go high” thing doesn’t seem to be working at all.
And arrest of a judge and handcuffing a senator on occasions well within their legally regulated official immunity. This is unconditionally an authoritarian (the executive towering far above over other branches of government) regime now, if not fascist. I have no qualms calling it fascist since they normalised Sieg Heils.
Despite your parenthesis on riots, I would say that people are not protesting enough. Where I live, some 30-35 years ago we had plenty of impostor policemen going around scamming and robbing people while judges were ineffective, so we had people who took it as their mission to gang up against the injustice of pretend-authorities. And I think ICE, the way they warrantlessly kidnap people, is a criminal organisation at this stage, non-different from actual mafia, and it is appropriate to take immediate action against them.
The protests in 1968 ended the political careers of LBJ and Hubert Humphrey, but resulted in the election of Nixon.
What seems to be missing here is the realization that populations can be divided on issues, and while politicians try to exploit division, they do not create it. This discussion really belongs on Walto’s thread.
keiths,
Partial truths is spin. The people he pardoned had spent time in jail and in most cases a fair amount. You are driving a narrative and not arguing in a balanced way.
Someone in Minnesota seems to be protesting enough.
petrushka,
I’d say assassination exceeds the bounds of what can reasonably called ‘protest’.
colewd:
I said that Trump “pardons people who assault police officers”. You confirmed that I am correct. My statement isn’t a “partial truth”, it’s 100% true. Trump did what I said he did.
You still haven’t disputed anything I included in my list, and I think that’s because you know it won’t go well for you. Instead, you try to wave it all away as “partial truths”, “spin”, “propaganda”, “bald assertions with no substance”, etc, hoping that will get you off the hook. When I ask you to show me how my list fits your description, you don’t, because that would force you to confront the items on it.
Criticize L Ron Hubbard to a Scientologist, and you’ll get the same reaction. If you criticize the Dear Leader, a Scientologist won’t engage in a rational discussion of your claim. They’ll tell you the problem is with you for criticizing him, not with the Dear Leader himself. That’s exactly what you are doing with respect to me and Trump. It’s cult behavior.
colewd:
He indiscriminately pardoned every single person who was convicted on a January 6 charge. More than 1500 of them. Are you going to tell me that he carefully considered whether they had served adequate time, and that it just so happened that every one of those 1500+ people had? It’s ridiculous.
He pardoned those people because they committed crimes for him, and he liked that. It didn’t matter what the crime was. Trump couldn’t care less about justice.
Stop saying true things about my Dear Leader that I cannot refute! You are driving a true narrative, and it makes the Dear Leader look bad. Make up some good things to say about him so that the conversation will be “balanced”!
The protests did nothing. There were regular elections, no elections cancelled, no changes in election laws (apart from ordinary gerrymandering), etc. The most extraordinary event in those times was the assassination of JFK, completely unrelated to any protests.
You mean the police impersonator in Minnesota? I made a point exactly against this, namely against illegitimate authority, any and all of it, but you keep making a partisan point in favour of illegitimate authority – when it’s guys you like, then overstepping the boundaries of authority, election denial, nepotism and cronyism, insurrection and treason, stealing and peddling government secrets, accepting airplanes with golden toilets, having a military parade for personal birthday, is fine by you, even though each one of these facts I mentioned makes the current president of USA illegitimate, unconstitutional.
Let’s try this: How much fraud has DOGE discovered/saved? A very rough ballpark estimation.
Except end the political careers of LBJ and Hubert Humphrey. As I said, and which is undeniable.
It is quite early in the investigation of the Minnesota assassinations, so I will only report that the governor originally called them politically motivated. I believe he has withdrawn that statement.
Wow. There are two giant banners on the USDA building overlooking the National Mall, one of Trump and one of Lincoln:
Image
Bill, if you can’t see how obscenely authoritarian that is, then there’s no hope for you.
Lincoln was enormously unpopular.
petrushka:
And is revered today. To juxtapose Trump with Lincoln is an obscenity.
keiths,
The inability of some people to voice real criticism of Trump puts me in mind of this clip from UK space comedy Red Dwarf, and attempts to get the android Kryten to go against his programming.
Allan,
At least Kryten tried. Bill is actively trying not to criticize his Dear Leader. Here’s all that he’s managed to cough up in this thread:
Which is more of an attempt to criticize us than it is of Trump. It’s actually a way of deflecting criticism of the Dear Leader by saying “You don’t like him, but that’s only because he has some caustic tendencies, nothing more”, as if none of our other criticisms had any merit. It’s like saying of Hannibal Lecter (who is one of Trump’s weird obsessions) “Oh, you just don’t like him because he can be a little rude to his guests sometimes.”
Bill also says:
More soft-pedaling. “I’d prefer that he attack the deficit more aggressively”, as if he were attacking the deficit at all. He’s not attacking the deficit, he’s actively trying to increase it. His “Big Beautiful Bill” is projected to add $3 trillion to the national debt.
I thought we might be making a tiny bit of progress when Bill made this concession…
…but apparently he felt guilty for suggesting that the Dear Leader might have done anything ‘questionable’, so he backtracked:
Yeah, like that guy (David Dempsey) who got sentenced to 20 years for merely having
20 years for those peccadilloes? What next? Throw kids in jail for stealing candy bars? That guy doesn’t belong in prison. Thank God we have a wise and benevolent Dear Leader who corrected this miscarriage of justice and put Dempsey back on the street where he belongs.
You mean protests did it and not elections? Funny thing: you never have a point to make and never a fact in your support, yet you never budge.
Colewd sometimes half-acknowledges a fact (for a moment), so one might think that with him there is some hope. But with petrushka there is no hope whatsoever. Of course the reason is that facts rank low on petrushka’s list of priorities, while opinions rank high, particularly “unpopular” opinions that cater to his appetite to trigger the libs or whatever it is that makes him write his thoughtless posts.
Really? As if you were interested… Meanwhile it is also quite early to say whether Trump’s tariffs policy works or not (and highly debatable who pays tariffs) and how much fraud and waste DOGE found. And whether ICE is catching criminal illegal aliens or *documented* immigrants and *legal* residents such as foreign employees and students. It is probably also early to say whether they are eating cats and dogs (and geese) in Springfield, Ohio. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. Lots of people say they do and everybody has a right to their opinion, right?
Probably a matter of taste, but I find petrushka’s sneaky passive-aggressive cultishness and empty deepities more dangerous than Bill’s openly happy pro-fascism. With Bill it is always immediately obvious to everyone that he is very much on the wrong side of everything, but petrushka often dupes Alan Fox, for one.
petrushka,
I can’t find any evidence of that, beyond MAGAs saying it on social media.
Boelter had a hit list of almost 70 names:
So the killer was a Jan6er type loon, the ilk that Trump pardoned wholesale. Will he pardon this one also? Will he send in the National Guard to prevent local police from handling the matter? Because this is really about Trump’s fascist regime, not about low-level loons.
By the way, when I say fascist, I know it is not a historically accurate replica of Hitler’s Germany. However, it definitely is in kahoots with Putin’s authoritarian Russia. As the latest case in point, for yesterday’s Flag Day, Pentagon revealed a new emblem design to mark their aspirations to become an oblast of Russia. Here’s the original tweet from Pentagon, an archived version, and the story I got this from https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2025/06/fact-check-department-of-defense-included-russian-flag-design-in-us-flag-day-on-tweet.html
Edit: I do not think Pete Hegseth did this personally. I’m sure he has zero graphics skills. He has Russian spies hired as assistants working for him to do things like this. After all, this administration is all about efficiency. Russian spies are among the cheapest to employ, very light on the budget.
Odd that the only ones actually attacked were, by coincidence, the only democrats who voted against free healthcare for undocumented immigrants.
Before making judgement, I’ll wait to see his manifesto.
But his priorities seem strange.
Looking at his past, he does seem to fit in the kook category. His resume seems padded, to be kind.
From my list:
Doesn’t read:
Trump Struggled to Discuss His Favorite Authors in 1987 Televised Interview
Donald Trump unable to name one verse from “favourite book” The Bible
No interest in learning:
Then there’s the fact that he believes idiotic things like “in Springfield, they’re eating the cats and dogs”, magnets don’t work underwater, windmill noise causes cancer, he invented the word “equalize”, “groceries” is an antiquated term, on and on, when any intelligent person would easily be able to do a tiny bit of homework and learn that those ideas are stupid and false.
Needing to have everything dumbed down for him (and this is the hilarious one that motivated me to write this comment):
To be fair, those anonymous administration sources haven’t spoken to any outlets other than NBC, so we can’t be absolutely certain that the story is true (though I doubt that NBC would have reported the story if it hadn’t vetted the sources). However, it fits with everything we already know about Trump. And clearly, the current PDB format (which is largely text-based) doesn’t work for him since he hates reading.
Here’s a Google Search AI summary about what people in Trump’s first administration have said about his (lack of) intelligence:
I would buy one of these for Bill if it said “I’m” instead of “You’re”.
Boelter has been apprehended alive.
Trump's dictatorial ambitions laid bare
What a creepy, power-hungry guy.
It also reminded me of this, from just before the election:
Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, confirmed it:
Extraordinary bit of attempted rationalisation. He was disturbed early in the spree.
But you’ll chuck out a bit of well-poisoning in advance. Sowing the seeds, as it were. Disgruntled Dem/mental health. Those are the go-tos. Never MAGA.
keiths,
It’s spin Keiths. Its your attempt either conscious or not to manipulate. You made no mention of time served. You’re driving a narrative and not discussing the situation in a balanced way. This is where the “lazy label’ TDS came from.
keiths:
colewd:
Stop saying true things about the Dear Leader! You’re manipulating us with the truth. When you point out that he pardoned the assailants of police officers, it makes him look bad. Stop doing that! He isn’t bad! How could he be bad, when he’s the Dear Leader? He can’t be bad. I don’t want that. I DON’T WANT THAT!
By contrast, I, colewd, have carefully examined each assault case and, by applying the United States Sentencing Guidelines, I have determined that the sentences were too harsh and that every single assailant has served sufficient time. I mean, look at David Dempsey. All he did was the following:
That’s it? You’re telling me the guy deserves more than 3 years in prison for that? You might as well put me in jail for my parking ticket.
Why did he pardon them, you ask, which erases the convictions entirely, versus commuting their sentences and leaving the convictions intact? Well, it’s because…um…it’s because…it’s because the Dear Leader wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t fair. He’s fair. He’s far more fair than you or me. After all, he’s our Dear Leader!
I mean, compare him to the judges who presided over the January 6 cases. All they did was sit in court, conduct trials, examine the evidence, and consult sentencing guidelines. Who are they to hand down sentences? The Dear Leader knows better. And unlike those bumbling judges, he doesn’t need to attend trials, examine the evidence or consult some stupid book of sentencing guidelines. He just instinctively knows that those people deserve to go free. That’s how impressive he is! He senses it. He’s superhuman. He knows more about everything than anybody, and as if that weren’t enough, he’s also a fantastic golfer. Look at all the tournaments he’s won!
Every one of those judges, in every single one of those 1500+ cases, screwed up by giving sentences that were too harsh. And don’t even get me started on the juries. You think they should be determining guilt or innocence? All they did was sit there and listen to the evidence, day after day. That’s pathetic. The Dear Leader is so smart, and so intuitive, that he doesn’t need to look at the evidence. It’s a piece of cake for him. He’s so good, he can determine guilt or innocence while he’s posting on Truth Social, golfing, or watching Fox News. The man is amazing. I mean, come on — do you think he would have pardoned 1500+ people, releasing them from prison and expunging their convictions, if they weren’t all innocent? What next? Are you going to claim that he didn’t invent the word ‘equalize’? It’s Trump Derangement Syndrome.
You’re driving a true narrative. It’s ridiculous. You’re presenting facts, as if they had any bearing on this. Don’t you get it? The facts don’t matter, not if they paint the Dear Leader in a bad light. The truth can’t be true unless it makes him look good.
As for balance, look at me. I sympathized with you and acknowledged that the Dear Leader can be caustic at times. That’s a huge concession. Try to be objective, like me. Concoct a bunch of good things to say about him so that they balance out the bad stuff. If you have trouble coming up with them, that’s OK. We’ll make some up for you. We’re MAGA!
Trump’s fake golf tournament wins reminded me of this:
Explain why he only shot people who were not on his list.
And why he shot people who were considered heroes by the MAGA crowd.
First thing I thought when I heard about the list was “ABC Murders”.
He has been charged with second degree murder, not premeditated. Interesting.
keiths,
Facts matter when they are presented in a balanced way. Do you really think you are persuading people who don’t already buy into your narrative?
Do you think we would be better off with Biden or Kamala as President now?
If I were on a jury, I would have to conclude that I haven’t seen any evidence proving Boelter is the shooter. He’s certainly implicated, but that’s not evidence of guilt.
It will be interesting to see if he lawyers up. At the moment, this looks a lot like the OJ Simpson case.
Exact same attempts at painting the assassin at first Antifa, then Democrat-associated, occurred after the Butler, Penn., shootings a year ago. These attempts were *strictly* confined to the Q/MAGA media. Soon enough it turned out that the assassin was a far-rightist.
That the Minnesota assassin is a far-rightist is also reasonably clear by now. His “childhood friend+roommate” (what a red flag all by itself) has described him as passionately anti-abortion and “God-loving” – the latter has strong racist and political undertones in USA. And again, attempts to make something Democrat-leaning out of the shooter are confined to the usual Q/MAGA disinformation sources.
Remember: It was a far-rightist who shot at Trump a year ago. History repeats itself at very short intervals these days, but MAGAdonians like Bill and petrushka still resort to their accustomed brainwash and refuse to expand their intake to sources of actual information.
No. It looks more like Kyle Rittenhouse case: He was (almost) livestreamed doing it, but given that USA is a lawless third-world failed state, the judge may end up deciding that it qualifies as self-defence. Well, probably there will be some accountability this time, because the victims are politicians.
And thanks for sharing that the Q/MAGA echochamber compares this incident to OJ Simpson now. I had not picked up this one yet (but of course in the Q/MAGA world it makes sense to compare the dude to a black man 😀 ). I really hate to do thorough research of their talking points, so thanks for helping me out a bit.
colewd:
What, precisely, does ‘balanced’ mean to you?
And if I’m not presenting the facts in a ‘balanced’ way, why don’t you present other facts that balance mine out? For instance, present the facts showing that David Dempsey, whose behavior is described in this comment, deserved to be pardoned by the Dear Leader after only three years.
Do you really think it was the right decision? And do you really think that every single one of the 1500+ people convicted for January 6 offenses deserved a full pardon?
petrushka:
Why Vance Boelter is (initially) charged with second-degree murder, not first-degree murder
First-degree murder charges could still come against the man charged in what officials say were politically motivated shootings in Minnesota.
Excerpt:
To healthy facts you need to add an equal amount of unhealthy misinformation and you will be halfway towards balance.
[/satire]