Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

When I was faster i was always behind.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

“But what about the lurkers?”

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Overnight Open Thread: You Get a Tariff, and You Get a Tariff!

Overnight Open Thread: You Get a Tariff, and You Get a Tariff!

by | 41 Comments

This post is in: 

Welcome night owls and early risers. This is your fill-in DJ until the usually indefatigable Anne Laurie returns.

A bit of humor tonight on the absurdity of the tariffs.  I stay as unplugged as I can, so I don’t lose my mind.  And I try to keep the overnight posts a bit lighthearted so maybe, just maybe, some of you can get some sleep, because god knows I’m finding it difficult.

Up first, your weekly Josh Johnson, who not only brings the funny, but the humanity, as well.

 

Then FLIPPERS UP! The penguins are done with our foolishness:

 

***

And since this has been running through my head tonight, I’ll add some music:

 

Totally open thread!

Reader Interactions

41Comments

  4. 4.

    Jim Appleton

    Can I just note that a very annoying tendency among left leaning pundits is vocal fry?

    The rightwads don’t seem to do this, but too many left leaners fingernail that chalkboard.

  11. 11.

    frosty

    Thanks for filling in TaMara! Us insomniacs appreciate it. Six hours of sleep is a luxury these days

  12. 12.

    prostratedragon

    @NotMax:  Had to laugh on seeing who it is, even though 1) I know that vocal talent and training are not rare among actors, and ii) had suspected her of having both in the past. Now to listen.

  16. 16.

    FastEdD

    I saw Foreigner Saturday night as part of the Long Beach Grand Prix. I looked it up-there are zero original members left. It was the 50th annual race and I have been to every one. I lost my partner Ginger to cancer a couple years ago. We used to go to that thing together for a long time. I got to talking with three women sitting next to me and one of them had also gone to the race every year for 50 years like me. She lost her husband to cancer 17 years ago. All 4 of us got to be good friends and we talked and laughed and danced with each other for hours. I haven’t had such a good time since the beginning of the Horrors.. It was magnificent, and I didn’t even care if there were any original members left. It feels like the very first time …

  19. 19.

    FastEdD

    @eclare: Thanks! I guess sometimes we can put the wreckage of our lives back together, even if it is just for one evening.

  22. 22.

    Princess

    The way RFK talks about autistic people is genocidal. I expect most people reading this realize that. He’s defining autistic people as non or sub human, as having lives that are hateful to them and not worth living. Then his commission will “discover” there is no “cure”. The next step historically has been genocide.

  24. 24.

    Geminid

    People in motion: Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni is in Washington, D.C and will meet with Trump today. And Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman is Tehran today, conferring with his Iranian counterpart. This is the highest-level meeting between Saudi and Iranian military officials in years.

    Unfortunately, Tufts graduate student Rumeysa Osturk isn’t going anywhere until May 1 at the earliest. That’s the date Vermont District federal court Judge Sessions set yesterday for her next hearing.

  25. 25.

    YY_Sima Qian

    The EU trying to navigate the new world:

    ‪Finbarr Bermingham‬ ‪@fbermingham.bsky.social‬

    New from me: EU draws lessons from China clashes as it faces off against Donald Trump Or: how recent trade tussles with Beijing helped provide a dry-run for dealing with Washington http://www.scmp.com/news/china/d...

    Last year, as the European Union’s 27 members prepared to vote on whether to impose tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles, US diplomats hit the phones.
    They mounted a pressure campaign to ensure countries did not waver under a counter campaign from Beijing to vote down the proposed tariffs

    Chinese officials, meanwhile, were dangling the carrot of lucrative investments for those voting against the duties, as well as the stick of retaliatory investigations into goods like pork, brandy and dairy that would disproportionately affect those who voted in favour.

    In the run-up to the vote, analysts created countless charts to predict where each capital would land in the EU’s complex voting system, weighing how susceptible they were to Beijing’s retaliation against whether they could benefit from the EV tariffs.

    In the end, the vote passed. Tariffs are now in place. But the episode showed how vulnerable the bloc is to superpower influence – and the fragility of EU unity.
    Now, unity is being tested again, but with a twist: Europe is turning some of the weapons it had trained on Beijing towards Washington

    This time the pressure to hold fire is even greater – and now it is coming from the US.
    Trump has threatened untold consequences if Europe dares retaliate, leading some to observe that the EU’s experiences with China last year provided an unlikely dry run for dealing with the Trump 2.0.

    “When Europe’s economic security interests clash with the two superpowers, member states quickly fracture into camps,” said @tobiasgehrke.bsky.social @ecfr.eu
    The challenge 27 of a country bloc is each has its own national interests, at risk of being peeled off with a promise or threat

    On the Chinese EV vote, Spain flipped from a vote in favour to an abstention
    Pedro Sanchez went to China and was threatened with a moratorium on investing in the Spanish economy, while Beijing launched a trade investigation into pork imports that would hit Spanish farmers hardest.

    Germany, the EU’s largest trader with China, was the most vocal opponent. Its companies feared retaliation in the form of tariffs and unfavourable treatment in China.
    Chancellor Olaf Scholz conducted a public lobbying campaign that many feared would derail the duties. It was messy.

    “Another 12 member states chose silence, abstaining from the vote and letting the [EU] Commission take the heat,” Gehrke recalled
    “In the debate over retaliating against US tariffs, coalitions reshuffle again. While European unity appears solid from afar, some cracks appear upon closer inspection”

    Enter Trump.
    Brussels officially ceased all forms of retaliation against the US after Trump paused and reduced his “reciprocal tariffs” for everyone but China, meaning EU exporters will pay 10 per cent rather than 20 per cent.
    But another messy debate is ongoing

    EU capitals still want to ensure their own companies are not disadvantaged in a tit-for-tat trade war. Trump’s 145 per cent tariffs on Chinese goods in response to Beijing’s retaliation have given some in Europe pause for thought.

    These divisions were on full view last week. Members voted to adopt retaliatory tariffs against Trump’s steel and aluminium duties, but they have clashed as the conversation has turned to the next steps.
    bsky.app/profile/fber…

    Some members, including France and Germany, pushed to deploy the anti-coercion instrument (ACI), the EU’s “trade bazooka” allowing it to target the US tech sector, for the first time.
    Others were more reluctant… some of the roles have changed, but the debate is reminiscent of last year’s on EVs

    There’s also the fact that most people thought the ACI would be first used vs China
    It was conceived in 2021 as a means of countering Trump’s first-term tariffs, but gained traction among EU members following China’s economic coercion of Lithuania later that year in a row over Taiwan

    As an aside, ACI was the first piece of legislation I covered from cradle to adoption after starting this job early 2021 – I am personally excited to see what it looks like in the wild… if they dare pull the trigger
    http://www.scmp.com/news/china/a...

    Another who has followed ACI closely is @etiennehoera.d-64.social @bertelsmannst.bsky.social

    “The whole China story has moved the debate on the ACI forward a lot,” Höra said. “If we had not had this mental exercise, talking about China, I think we would not be in the same place that we are now.”

    Cecilia Malmstrom, ex-EU trade chief, described ACI as “a powerful tool that could cause severe pain for US companies if imposed”
    “But wouldn’t it be ironic if an instrument created to address unfair trade + coercion by China would be first used against US?”
    http://www.piie.com/blogs/realti...

    As the retaliation debate develops, analysts have once again started publishing detailed charts, now looking at each country’s US ties.
    The aim is to find out which could be vulnerable to being picked off by a superpower – this time Trump – as EU mulls firing its bazooka.
    bsky.app/profile/tobi…

    Among the strongest opponents: Ireland, corporate home to US tech giants, and the Baltics, which depend on US security guarantees.
    “If you were to get into that space, it would be an extraordinary escalation at a time when we must be working for de-escalation,” said Tanaiste Simon Harris last wk

    “It is the nuclear option, if you start talking about the use of the anti-coercion instrument,” Harris said Lithuania’s FM Budrys: “Lithuania was one of the reasons it was created because of economic coercion from China, so we have to keep it, but we don’t want to rush to use it.”

    The dynamics will be familiar to those who have followed the EU’s lack of unity on China down the years, with Beijing often accused trying to “divide and conquer” the bloc. foreignpolicy.com/2024/05/07/c…

    They also reflect a suspicion that the superpowers are becoming more alike. Experience dealing with one may be helpful in dealing with the other.
    “If we are to discuss a changing China, we cannot do this without reflecting on a changing US,” said @aranchagonzalez.bsky.social in Paris last week

    Gonzalez saw similarities with China in Trump’s “authoritarian” bent, the “very personalised style of leadership”, the “weakening of the checks and balances”, the “blurring of the public space, the private space and the state space” and the “rise of very conservative values”.

    “Maybe this ideological closeness is leading this discussion of a power competition rather than a competition for imposing a certain model of ideology, of democracy or not, or protection of human rights or not,” Gonzalez said.
    “It’s more about winning the race than imposing a model.”

    In the end, we should expect countries to act based on interests, not principle. However, I think the Baltics do need to come to terms w/the fact that the US will not protect them from Russia, possibly the opposite. No amount of concessions on trade to MAGA will change that. MAGA views the Baltics as “natural” Russian sphere of influence.

  26. 26.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Princess: He’s also setting up a pre-cooked investigation to “discover” that vaccines are the cause of autism. The guy he named to do it already got in trouble for performing medical experiments on children without a license.

    Curiously, one of the things the guy did was administer puberty blockers, under some crank theory that precocious puberty was the cause of autism. I guess they’re OK as long as you’re not using them to help trans kids. What was more dangerous was the chelation therapy he gave them for imaginary heavy-metal poisoning.

  28. 28.

    Liminal Owl

    @Matt McIrvin: How can “precocious puberty” be the cause, when so many kids are diagnosed in their earliest years? (First 3? First 5? I’m not sure of the exact number, but that’s the time period when I hear of very effective Early Intervention.) —I know, I know. Logic is nowhere in evidence, in these people’s “thought.”

  30. 30.

    Geminid

    @Liminal Owl: I found out about Ms. Ozturk’s hearing when I was checking out Middle East news this morning. Both Ankara-based Clash Report and Middle East Eye reporter Ragip Soylu posted the news. Rumeysa Ozturk is a Fulbright Scholar from Turkiye, and there is a lot of interest over there in her case.

  31. 31.

    Betty

    @Princess: In thinking about his statements, I remembered he had an aunt who was mentally challenged. As I recall, she was loved and cared for by her family. I wonder if he felt the same way about her.

  32. 32.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Liminal Owl: My skills at dissecting crank reasoning are limited, but I guess Geier (the crank in question) must have figured there was some super-early intimation of puberty going on, caused by the metals in the vaccines, or something.

    The age of puberty has apparently been getting earlier and there’s been (legit) speculation for decades about some kind of environmental cause, so I can believe this is something that RFK Jr. and the pseudoscientists he follows would try to connect to everything.

  33. 33.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I’m looking at a video of a blond woman talking on the White House lawn. I’d have to turn on the sound to be sure if it’s the AG or the Press Secretary. Do they look alike to anyone else?

  34. 34.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The age of puberty has apparently been getting earlier and there’s been (legit) speculation for decades about some kind of environmental cause

     

    Better nutrition? That’s why humans are bigger and taller than they used to be.

  36. 36.

    Betty

    @Betty: I tried to revise this comment but the edit function expired a bit too soon. I decided I had better check my memory about Rosemary Kennedy. I did not remember this correctly. It was a much sadder situation. Apparently RFK Jr. takes after his grandfather, Joseph, who just wanted to hide his daughter’s issues. Very sad indeed what he did to her.

  37. 37.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Baud:

    Bingo! Better nutrition leads to earlier achievement of weight levels in girls which are signals for ovulation and menstruation.

  39. 39.

    Jackie

    @Betty:

    I remembered he had an aunt who was mentally challenged. As I recall, she was loved and cared for by her family. I wonder if he felt the same way about her.

    Are you referring to Joe and Rose Kennedy’s oldest daughter, Rosemary Kennedy? She was institutionalized for the majority of her life after a lobotomy “gone wrong.”

    Apparently she was born with “learning disabilities.” Such a tragic story.

  41. 41.

    chemiclord

    @They Call Me Noni: There really isn’t much evidence to support the idea that a different species’ hormones that additionally go through our digestive system are in a state that our bodies can use in any meaningful way.

    Maybe if you injected such hormones directly into your bloodstream it might, but even that is extremely debatable.

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