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You are here: Home / Economics / Grifters Gonna Grift / Fresh Open Thread

Fresh Open Thread

by Anne Laurie|  April 12, 20252:20 pm| 38 Comments

This post is in: Grifters Gonna Grift

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Reader Interactions

38Comments

  1. 1.

    Raoul Paste

    April 12, 2025 at 2:25 pm

    From the first cartoon, it appears Trump has factored organic chemistry into the tariffs.  He really can do it all

  2. 2.

    A Ghost to Most

    April 12, 2025 at 2:27 pm

    Such is life around the willfully ignorant. Too much truth, not enough reality, and a complete lack of ability to separate the two

  3. 3.

    different-church-lady

    April 12, 2025 at 2:29 pm

    Even after all this, far too many people still think fascism is just a fun TV show.

  4. 4.

    Professor Bigfoot

    April 12, 2025 at 2:35 pm

    I’m gonna drag this up from downstairs: I was asked, “what do Democrats stand for?”

    This is my reply:

    The Democratic Party stands for the right of individual people to live their lives, in peace with their neighbors, and for every citizen to have “the blessings of liberty” as promised in the Constitution.

    We stand for the Constitution. We stand for the rule of law. We stand for the rights of EVERY American, not just the white, moneyed, Christian, males.

  5. 5.

    MCat

    April 12, 2025 at 2:44 pm

    @Professor Bigfoot: Perfect. Thank you!

  6. 6.

    Elizabelle

    April 12, 2025 at 2:53 pm

    Anne, I am so glad to see you back.  Hope you are feeling spiffier.

    @Professor Bigfoot:   Well said.  Brief and informative.

  7. 7.

    Spanky

    April 12, 2025 at 2:56 pm

    President Donald Trump told reporters he “got every answer right,” on a cognitive test during his annual physical at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday.
    Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One after the physical, Trump said he thinks he did well and that he believed the full report would be released Sunday.
    He did not share many other specific details from the exam — which was the first of his second term. He said the exam showed a “good heart, a good soul, very good soul.”

    Jaysus, where’s the smiting when you need it?

  8. 8.

    karen gail

    April 12, 2025 at 2:59 pm

    @Spanky: He has a good soul? Obviously he didn’t go to a “real” doctor since don’t think the medical profession has a test for a “soul.”

  9. 9.

    The Audacity of Krope

    April 12, 2025 at 3:08 pm

    @Spanky: President Donald Trump told reporters he “got every answer right,” on a cognitive test during his annual physical

    Thinking that simply getting the “right answer” adequately describes the scope or purpose of a cognitive test suggests at least one type of poor cognition.

    Then again, it’s the fairly common lazy thinker type.

  10. 10.

    bluefoot

    April 12, 2025 at 3:16 pm

    Finally got around to doing my taxes.  I should have done them earlier.  I made little enough money last year that I actually get a refund.  It would be just my luck that the first time in a long time I get a refund, the IRS gets dismantled…

    Now I’m procrastinating on other stuff by posting here and cleaning the house a bit.

  11. 11.

    Redshift

    April 12, 2025 at 3:35 pm

    @Professor Bigfoot: Excellent. I’m always frustrated by “freedumb!” conservatives and their “freedom means freedom to do the right thing, doing the wrong thing is ‘abusing your freedoms'”.

  12. 12.

    sukabi

    April 12, 2025 at 3:35 pm

    @The Audacity of Krope: “every answer right”…. that’s quite a decline from the last time when he provided specific details about the animals he needed to identify and his set of words he had to remember…and the countless times he told everyone what a smart boy he was because he aced his cognitive test…

     

    quite the decline Mr. Trump.

  13. 13.

    Suzanne

    April 12, 2025 at 3:37 pm

    @Professor Bigfoot:

    and for every citizen to have “the blessings of liberty” as promised in the Constitution. 

    You would probably be shocked-but-not-surprised by the number of religious conservatives who mock “the blessings of liberty”. Because, of course, they’re all about liberty for themselves and their friends, and straight up hate the liberty of everyone else. Go read Rod Dreher on this topic sometime and try to keep your food in your stomach.

  14. 14.

    JaneE

    April 12, 2025 at 3:38 pm

    Well it looks like cellphones and computers and chips are exempt now.  Apparently even from China and all the tariffs on them, but I could be wrong about that.  Even the Customs folks are having a hard time keeping up with the changes.  And it is supposed to be retroactive, so those who already paid now have to request refunds.

    Economic chaos and meltdown are the goals, primary even to the money.

  15. 15.

    The Audacity of Krope

    April 12, 2025 at 3:40 pm

    @Suzanne: they’re all about liberty for themselves and their friends, and straight up hate the liberty of everyone else. Go read Rod Dreher on this topic sometime and try to keep your food in your stomach.

    When your version of liberty is the freedom to oppress others…

  16. 16.

    Suzanne

    April 12, 2025 at 3:44 pm

    @The Audacity of Krope: These people are fucking monsters. Anything or anyone who offends their aesthetics, they would use the force of law to ban. They do not believe in “the blessings of liberty”, they believe those things have destroyed society.

    These are the enemies we have to fight.

  17. 17.

    Martin

    April 12, 2025 at 3:49 pm

    @JaneE: Investors won that round. Billions were made by the options traders.

  18. 18.

    cmorenc

    April 12, 2025 at 3:56 pm

    @Professor Bigfoot: You are asking for an effective phrase for communicating what positives Democrats are about.  We need to come up with a phrase as effective as “Make America Great Again” – it concisely fits on both a physical and mental bumper-sticker, and is at once aggressively positive and nebulously vague enough for folks to color in whatever notions they wish for it to mean.  One key common core belief the phrase signals is belief in a more prosperous, secure past era before society and government got corrupted by unhealthy notions of modernity imposed while liberals controlled things.

    In short, it’s one of the most efficiently effective political slogans ever – communicates a whole worldview i just four words, while being vague enough to mean just what the individual listener wants it to without requiring any critical thinking.

    I wish we could come up with as effective and concise a phrase – as with MAGA, the less critical thinking it required to convincingly resonate with people’s core feelings and beliefs, the better.  One thing it is definitely NOT is a draft for a debate argument – it is instead designed to be a phrase that effectively cuts off debate because it hits people’s core values in the solar plexus like a hard punch.

  19. 19.

    Steve LaBonne

    April 12, 2025 at 4:08 pm

    @Professor Bigfoot: But wait you can't say that last part too loud because we'll lose white working class voters herp derp

  20. 20.

    The Audacity of Krope

    April 12, 2025 at 4:09 pm

    @cmorenc: “Liberty and Justice for All” covers all the major points and is time-tested.

  21. 21.

    The Audacity of Krope

    April 12, 2025 at 4:14 pm

    @Steve LaBonne: I may be a rarity among my white male peers, but I find far less to identify with my skin color or the culture I was raised in as opposed to the culture where I truly found community.

    I don’t even mind the lack of a true feeling of belonging. Nothing to be done there. But ‘white” describes a poison that has been hurting the broader American culture since it’s inception. I say attack that which is white with almost full abandon, save for the usual caveats it’s a matter of culture rather than birth condition.

  22. 22.

    Steve LaBonne

    April 12, 2025 at 4:20 pm

    @The Audacity of Krope: I am proud of my Irish and Québecois ancestry. I have no use for “white” identity, which is horseshit made up in the early modern period to justify exploiting and enslaving people with more melanin than Europeans.

  23. 23.

    AM in NC

    April 12, 2025 at 4:21 pm

    @cmorenc: Democrats: Decency, Prosperity, Liberty, Nobody’s Puppet

  24. 24.

    AM in NC

    April 12, 2025 at 4:22 pm

    @The Audacity of Krope: even better than what I said above and already time-tested

  25. 25.

    Professor Bigfoot

    April 12, 2025 at 4:27 pm

    @Suzanne: Nah, that wouldn’t surprise me.

    Conservative Christians want Gilead.

    No “minorities,” women under complete control, strong white “commanders.”

    Freedom for all? Oh, hell no.

  26. 26.

    RevRick

    April 12, 2025 at 4:31 pm

    @Martin: What investors? A few might’ve gotten ahead of the curve, but Trump’s tariffs on, tariffs off, tariffs on, tariffs maybe have the markets reeling.
    Billionaires make their unholy piles, not by playing the market, but by owning companies.

  27. 27.

    Professor Bigfoot

    April 12, 2025 at 4:31 pm

    @cmorenc: “Make America Great Again.”

    What does that actually mean?

    It’s some sepia-toned version of the 1950s where there were no Black people, women put on dresses and makeup to prepare dinner for their hardworking husbands every night.

    Where they never have to compete with Black people OR women for anything.

    The Nazis were very good at slogans.

  28. 28.

    Professor Bigfoot

    April 12, 2025 at 4:31 pm

    @Steve LaBonne: Right? [snicker]

  29. 29.

    The Audacity of Krope

    April 12, 2025 at 4:37 pm

    @Steve LaBonne: All this, precisely.

  30. 30.

    Melancholy Jaques

    April 12, 2025 at 5:03 pm

    @Professor Bigfoot:

    I agree with that, though I’d put a period after American just so as to not single out any subgroup of Americans.

  31. 31.

    MoCaAce

    April 12, 2025 at 5:06 pm

    At my last checkup they found my soul was deficient. Something about a lack of empathy for FFOTUS voters.

  32. 32.

    catclub

    April 12, 2025 at 5:23 pm

    @Martin: Billions were made by the options traders.

     

    it is kind of a zero sum game, so billions were also lost by options traders.

     

    The ones who bet on increased volatility definitely are winning.

  33. 33.

    Steve LaBonne

    April 12, 2025 at 5:31 pm

    @MoCaAce: I once had an MRI of my head. They didn’t find anything.

  34. 34.

    Splitting Image

    April 12, 2025 at 6:26 pm

    @The Audacity of Krope:

    @Spanky: President Donald Trump told reporters he “got every answer right,” on a cognitive test during his annual physical

    Thinking that simply getting the “right answer” adequately describes the scope or purpose of a cognitive test suggests at least one type of poor cognition.

    Then again, it’s the fairly common lazy thinker type.

    I had two surgeries a few years ago and was given cognitive tests after I came out from under the anesthetic. I remember how relieved I felt when I was able to answer every question and was also able to remember why they were asking those questions. and how serious it would be if I got even one question wrong. (A lot of horrible things can go wrong during surgery.)

    Bragging about for years afterward would have been the last thing on my mind.

     

  35. 35.

    Betty

    April 12, 2025 at 7:28 pm

    @cmorenc: Liberty and justice for all?

  36. 36.

    NotMax

    April 12, 2025 at 7:33 pm

    @Splitting Image

    “Who is president of the United States?”

    “He who shall not be named lest I vomit.”

    “You pass.”

    :)

  37. 37.

    Betty

    April 12, 2025 at 7:37 pm

    Oops! I see The Audacity of Krope got there long before me. The problem is too many people don’t believe a lot of Dem politicians really show that in their actions.

  38. 38.

    Matt McIrvin

    April 12, 2025 at 8:55 pm

    @cmorenc: “Liberty and justice for all” is pretty good, I always thought.

    All means all.

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