Pouring one out for the White House staff that did everything they could to make sure Trump never found out about “TACO.”
— Brendan Duke (@brendanvduke.bsky.social) May 31, 2025 at 10:24 AM
President Donald Trump’s move-fast-and-break-things ethos this week led to a major setback for his trade policy, leaving the White House scrambling to chart its way around a potentially devastating legal ruling.
Yet with the central element of his economic agenda in jeopardy, Trump is digging in on his vow to impose steep tariffs by any means necessary — and stick it to those who question his strength and think he’s bound to “chicken out.” He and administration officials have said that negotiations with other countries will continue, are insisting they’ll win their current tariff battle in court and are even preparing back-up strategies for new tariffs in case they don’t…
Trump and his top lieutenants see the speed with which he is moving to enact not just trade policy but his entire agenda as a feature, not a bug. Trade adviser Peter Navarro, who has been with Trump since his first term, often refers to the pace as “Trump time,” and other senior White House staff members frequently chalk up any inconsistency or volatility in the president’s policymaking approach to his dealmaking acumen…
(And here we thought “Trump time” was all those work hours he spent watching Fox.)
President Trump irritated that his team didn’t tell him about ‘TACO,’ sources say: cnn.it/3HfeMS1
— CNN (@cnn.com) May 31, 2025 at 8:29 AM
… The TACO acronym’s journey to the Oval Office is, in and of itself, a telling narrative about the current information environment.It originated with a May 2 column from Robert Armstrong, a Financial Times commentator and author of the publication’s popular finance newsletter “Unhedged.”
Armstrong coined the phrase as a way of capturing Trump’s frequent willingness to walk back, pause or provide carve outs from his most expansive tariff threats. The idea, in short, is that Trump’s threats had created a pattern of driving stocks down, only to see them surge when he changed course weeks later.
He used the term to try and explain the steady upward trajectory taking place in late April, which he wrote had “a lot to do with markets realizing that the U.S. administration does not have a very high tolerance for market and economic pressure, and will be quick to back off when tariffs cause pain. This is the TACO theory: Trump Always Chickens Out.”
The acronym became something of a running joke on finance Twitter, the informative and generally good-humored corner of X where financial commentators and analysts debate the day’s most interesting, market moving or, at times, arcane topics.
Within a few weeks, the TACO trade had become a fixture of Wall Street chatter and started appearing in client notes from financial analysts and economists. The rapid acceleration of the acronym’s role in finance lexicon caught Armstrong, who has been sharply critical of the economic merits of Trump’s tariffs, by surprise…
“The outcome I really, really hope does not happen is that this has anything to do with the president stopping his habitual chickening out,” Armstrong added. “Let us state clearly, chickening out is good and something to be celebrated. Bad policy chickening out — hooray.”
Trump made it clear to the reporter on Wednesday that he preferred a different description.
“You call that chickening out?” Trump asked. “It’s called negotiation.”
He's not just a diva. He's a total TACO BELLE.
— Rob Thorne ???? (@torenware.bsky.social) May 29, 2025 at 10:15 PM
====
Butch
Can we please see some evidence of these supposed negotiations?
Gin & Tonic
Yeah, speaking of “getting through”…
HinTN
You mean they didn’t come to señor TACO with tears in their eyes and say, “Sir …”? Sad
Raoul Paste
A truck on every corner, please
MagdaInBlack
@Butch: Well, he did say it was his “preferred description” not that it was an actual description.
Scout211
You mean like this?
It’s The Art of the Deal! I hear there’s a whole book about it.
cmorenc
@Butch:
You clearly don’t understand that Trump has successfully negotiated a plan to arrive at a concept of a plan for tariff agreements with multiple countries, a feat that is only possible because Trump is the best deal-artist ever, very bigly so.
lowtechcyclist
They misspelled “toddlerhood.”
Spanky
As I said yesterday,
And here we are. Bring on the popcorn!
m.j.
“Bad policy.” “Hooray.”
What do you call those guys who wanted to turn lead into gold?
Another Scott
He’s a horrible damaged man who can be goaded by a tweet, as HRC said years ago.
[ sigh ]
Meanwhile, be careful because it very likely might be AI.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
SW
Poor guy gonna work himself to death.
Quiltingfool
OT: Looks like Ukraine is opening a can of whoop ass on Russian air bases. Lots of planes being blown up. Just read this over at LGM.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/06/major-ukrainian-drone-attack-in-russia
Slava Ukraini!
lowtechcyclist
I’m sure it works effectively on Cheeto Benito, but I’m not really OK with using variations on “you’re like a girl” as a way of insulting a man. Being a woman or girl isn’t being weak or anything else along those lines.
JMHO.
Raoul Paste
@Another Scott: Thanks
I am not liking this new, disputed-reality era.
Jackie
@cmorenc: ding ding ding!
BellyCat
The question is whether or not the Great TACO Depression can or will be averted now that Trump is going to dig in on tariffs.
Jackie
@Spanky: Butbutbut… Armstrong meant chickening out as a compliment!
Gin & Tonic
@Quiltingfool: More details down in Adam’s thread.
Scout211
Let’s take a trip on the way back machine to uh, May 16 of this year to get a great example of the TACO trade “negotiations.”
Trump says US will unilaterally set new tariff rates for scores of countries
. . .
Actually, Trump lacks the bandwidth.
Jackie
@lowtechcyclist: Maybe TACO Bandito?
WaterGirl
I want to marry that taco truck comic up top.
YY_Sima Qian
@Scout211: The PRC government did agree to remove non-tariff barriers raised in response to the US tariffs from 4/2 & on, such as the ban on purchasing US farm produce & ban on taking delivery of Boeing airliners already purchased. The Trump Administration is accusing the PRC of not loosening the export controls on rare earth elements & rare earth magnets. However, those export controls were implemented in retaliation against tightening US export controls on all things semiconductor related (imposed by Biden, escalating from the tech. war that Trump 45 initiated, which Trump 47 escalated from in turn). The PRC export controls on REEs & REMs are not part of the retaliation package against “Liberation Day” & aftermath, but in response to the 7 years hold tech war the US has been waging against the PRC.
Indeed, just w/in the past couple of weeks the Trump Administration has banned the sale of downgraded (so much so that they are no longer compelling against the local competition) Nvidia H20 GPUs to the PRC, warned (backtracked from what was initially worded as sanctions) against companies around the world (including in the PRC!) from purchasing local alternatives made by Huawei, banned the sale & service support of Electronic Design Automation softwares (used for designing semiconductors) to PRC firms. Now the Trump Administration is considering to place all subsidiaries of PRC companies on the Entity Lists (where they own > 50% share) on the Entity Lists, as well. This will make it virtually impossible for US companies to even sell non-dual use inputs to subsidiaries of PRC companies on the Entity List that produce non-dual use products.
W/ all of that, any wonder the PRC government is in no mood to issue export licenses of REEs & REMs to US firms (after issuing them to European/Japanese/South Korean firms, w/ stern warnings against reselling to the US)? Now, many US manufacturers (including auto manufacturers) faces production stoppage w/in weeks.
We’ll see if it will be TACO again, or will Trump double down until the US manufacturing supply chains is in chaos. However, much of this new round of escalation could have been avoided if the Trump Administrations had any China expertise in any of the White House organizations or Executive branch departments. Even the “Blobby” China Hawks were recently purged from the NSC. Instead, white supremacists such as Peter Navarro, who still think it is 2005 & the US enjoys absolute tech. dominance over the PRC, has Trump’s ear.
The Audacity of Krope
I don’t know about you, but I always start negotiations by unilaterally imposing extra demands above the original agreement in place before I set foot in the room.
Ohio Mom
@Another Scott: That’s a very clever — and scary — video about AI.
I’m not going to be fooled by an announcement about Canada attacking the U.S., or a claim that herbal supplements cured case of cancer, but it is an interesting exercise to think about what could fool me. It would have to be plausible but not accurate.
The catch would be, it would have to be presented by multiple sources. If only one source showed footage of China attacking Taiwan, okay, but then if multiple sources all jumped on the same fake report, then what?
lowtechcyclist
@YY_Sima Qian:
They don’t believe in science, and they don’t believe in ‘expertise’ generally. It’s all Deep State to them.
mappy!
His usual first response is to double down. Usually to his detriment. Two weeks? Ninety days? Que Será, Será, chicken quesadilla.
lowtechcyclist
@Ohio Mom:
Good question!
One thing I hope would tip me off in a lot of for-instances would be what I’ve for decades thought of as my “too-good-to-be-true-ometer,” the part of me that gets a bit suspicious of something that fits in with, appeals to, encourages my own prejudices and axes to grind just a bit too well.
But that’s ‘a lot of for-instances,’ and far from all of them.
Citizen_X
Financial analysts? On X?
Gonna bet their “humor” is borderline sociopathic.
lowtechcyclist
@Jackie:
Banditos have to a certain extent been romanticized, so it’s less than optimal as an insult. Good try, though.
Matt McIrvin
@Ohio Mom: It’d probably be something that flatters opinions you already hold; no matter who you are, those are always the easiest lies to accept.
The fake that took down Dan Rather–the documents concerning George W. Bush’s behavior during the Vietnam War: that’s a good example. Liberals really wanted to believe that stuff because it furthered the narrative they were pushing to try to win the 2004 election. But it was probably a trap intended to discredit the anti-Bush people in the political media.
Baud
@Another Scott:
Nominated!
YY_Sima Qian
@lowtechcyclist: I am seeing highly plausible commentary that the Trump plan to revoke visas from international students originating from the PRC is only partly about decoupling from the PRC. The more important objective to MAGA is breaking US higher education altogether, since MAGA views universities as ideological enemies & represent just about everything they see wrong about America. Combined w/ the slashing federal funding to the bone, closing off the the revenue stream from Chinese international students paying full tuitions (while those from elsewhere are increasingly deterred by the capricious deportation & refusals upon entry), will probably do it for all but the best endowed institutions of higher learning.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Supposedly, they changed chatgpt so that it’s stokes the user’s ego with excessive positivity.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist:
I tend to overcompensate for that so much that I’m probably more susceptible to things that sound dark and horrible and contrary to what I’d like to believe.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Dare Obasanjo was talking about that on Mastodon the other day–he asked one of them to summarize what it thought about him given their interactions, and it produced this profile that made accurate reference to the things he talked about but was clearly buttering him up.
Another Scott
@Ohio Mom: Yup.
I’m reminded that a year or few ago, there was stuff blowing up (to some extent) on Twitter, apparently out of India, saying that all of China’s airports were shut down. Clicking over to FlightAware showed that planes were flying, but it was in the middle of the night, so it wasn’t clear to me if there was any difference from normal.
I spent entirely too much time (if only a few minutes) thinking there might be something to it, rather than stepping back and asking “why would the source for this world-affecting news if true be in India??”
Of course, it wasn’t true.
It’s exhausting to have to question every single thing, but it’s something we must be willing to do if something seems shocking and unusual and activates our lizard truthy-loving guts (for whatever reason).
Hang in there, everyone.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
It’s going to start asking for money soon.
Matt McIrvin
@YY_Sima Qian: They’re clearly trying to shut down international students altogether to the extent that they can get away with it.
This isn’t just an attack on universities in general; I think it’s an attack on, specifically, one of the major benefits that our universities offer to American students: the opportunity to meet people from all over the world and see that they’re just people. Trump’s people don’t want universities to be like that; they want them to be lily-white and performatively patriotic centers of conservative indoctrination. They imagine that universities used to be this, though as far as I can tell, conservatives were whining about tenured radicals 100 years ago and probably always will as long as there are universities.
I was talking about this with my daughter, though, and she pointed out that for her, this didn’t begin in college–it was her experience of primary and secondary school as well. And that probably pisses off Stephen Miller even more.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Well, yeah. The free introductory offers never last forever: stuff retreats behind the paywall, and that’s the whole point of this whole exercise.
Nukular Biskits
Good mornin’, y’all.
YY_Sima Qian
@Gin & Tonic: Now that I am catching up on the news… What an op!
This development will feed every security planner’s preexisting paranoia. The Congressional Repubs will double down on chasing after the “hundreds of thousands military aged Chinese males sneaking through the southern border”, lest they launch waves of quadcopters against barely defended USAF bases in the Continental US during a great power war w/ the PRC. The PRC Ministry of State Security will wonder about potential freelancers on Taiwanese payroll doing the same to PLAAF bases (though somewhat better defended) during an invasion of Taiwan.
YY_Sima Qian
@Matt McIrvin: Stephen Miller is going to work on the primary & secondary education, as well.
Quiltingfool
@Gin & Tonic: We’ll, I’m late to the party! I read Adam’s post and comments last night, but didn’t go back this morning to read additional comments.
All the destroyed aircraft makes my heart sing.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
rikyrah
TACO
TACO
TACO
🤣🤣
rikyrah
TACO BELLE 🌮 🌮 🌮 🤣😊🤣😊
rikyrah
@Quiltingfool:
👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
espierce
@lowtechcyclist:
TacoVendor works for me!
NotMax
Because it’s that time again.
;)
Trivia Man
@Ohio Mom: one clip, same angle location, and duration on multiple channels is suspicious. If an event is real, there will be varying views from different angles, locations, and quality that all agree either each other.
Much more difficult to scale up a deceptive “video”.
lowtechcyclist
@YY_Sima Qian:
The problem I have with this is that it doesn’t fit well with even the really perverse ideas of what “Make America Great Again” means to the loonies on the right. They may be pissed that (as they see it) a bunch of liberal commie pinkos are running America’s universities, but if their solution is to get rid of the universities, things will start falling apart due to a lack of an educated workforce. Baby, bath water, etc.
That’s already going to happen to a certain extent because so many of those foreign students who pay full freight to be educated at our universities decide they like it here and increase and strengthen our workforce by staying. And by and large, they’ll be absent from our universities’ classrooms this fall.
But destroying our universities would mean no foreign-born and no homegrown educated workforce. It would be a disaster.
Now Trump may not see that, but I’d think even most of his dumbed-down henchmen (henchpersons?) still have enough functioning brain cells to realize that. And his inner circle isn’t going to be satisfied with a better cardboard box and curtain rod than Those People get; they’re going to want to continue to live affluent lives after Trump is out of power. That’ll necessitate a high-functioning society to be at or near the top of the heap of, and that’s going to go away pretty fast if our higher education system is destroyed.
Buggrit
@rikyrah: TACO Pendejo!
lowtechcyclist
@espierce:
I’m going with Taco Grande, since it’s a Weird Al parody.
YY_Sima Qian
@lowtechcyclist: “Breaking” as in neutering American universities as independent entities that could serve as ideological incubators for resistance against MAGA, & turn them into pliant organizations in service of MAGA, not razing universities to the ground altogether.
MagdaInBlack
@YY_Sima Qian: Controlling the educational system: Yet another way of controlling the narrative.
lowtechcyclist
@YY_Sima Qian:
The program you suggested sounded to me like it would simply bankrupt most of them, hence my misinterpretation.
WaterGirl
@Scout211:
Thanks for the chuckle.
SW
It’s the new Cultural Revolution with soft tacos
Matt McIrvin
@YY_Sima Qian:
In fact, this would make them objectively suck as educational institutions and have an effect on American economic and technical leadership similar to eliminating them. But conservatives don’t think that is true.
The only real advantage liberalism has ever had on a level playing field is its greater ability to grapple with reality. But it hurts everyone when reality pushes back, so the cost of the fight is always high.
jonas
Trump thinks he’s holding all the cards. He’s not. There will be no-one coming to him in tears. No-one calling him “Sir” and begging “to make a deal.” There will only be the smirks on the faces of foreign trade delegations watching him come apart as US consumers start feeling the pinch of higher prices and product shortages.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: I’ve seen the conservative version of science. You might well be able to train a generation of engineers on it without damaging their work in their specialty too badly, as long as they stay in their lane. But since it’s all stuck together with bullshit and fantasy, it’s useless for innovation.
jonas
@YY_Sima Qian:
Well, what’s the use of higher education when your future, and that of your children and grandchildren, apparently, is assembling things with screws in giant factories day in and day out?
Ohio Mom
@Trivia Man: I don’t have the time, inclination or knowledge set to check on everything. Another Scott could click over to FlightAware but I couldn’t because I’d be completely unaware that the FlightAware site existed.
Now in that example, I’d probably think, “Wow, what the —“ and wait until the next day to see if it made the big news outlets.
Because what is going on in China does not have an immediate, actionable effect on me the way a tornado watch would. THAT I would check on the various weather sites I’ve bookmarked. But now it seems, I have to start wondering if there are enough staff at the NWS offices to keep the info current.
Ohio Mom
@Matt McIrvin: Preventing foreign students from attending American colleges and universities is another way of starving the beast of higher Ed. Those students pay full freight.
Another example of the Republican gift for evil genius.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
“You’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and doggoneit, people like you.”
That’ll be $50.
Ken B
Maybe people should be asking Trump about the Russians laughing at him and calling him Putin’s Bitch…
Might point his tantrums in a useful direction.
Ruckus
@cmorenc:
You have clearly over estimated how a man that seeming can not even comprehend the words on a page of writing and the only thing he does understand is the dribble that pours out of his mouth, but all he understands about that is that it is golden. Oh wait if it’s golden doesn’t that come out of a different orifrice? Or is it the same one for him?
NotMax
A taco schmuck on every corner.
//
There go two miscreants
One of Asimov’s earlier robot stories – Liar! – had this sort-of as its theme. A mind-reading robot that had to obey the Three Laws and so could not say anything less than flattering.
Liminal Owl
@lowtechcyclist: Thank you. I have been trying to get this point across.
YY_Sima Qian
@lowtechcyclist: Threaten the universities with/ bankruptcy & hope they make accommodations w/ MAGA priorities & preferences (see Columbia), & defund the departments that might serve as ideological incubators for resistance. I suspect MAGA types think most of the departments in universities are waste of resources, just like they think most departments in the federal government are waste of resources.
Ruckus
@lowtechcyclist:
No it isn’t.
But to a male human (if he is one – he sure seems to fill the lowest possible category of one if he is) of his “stature” (big, stupid, and demented) of his kind, he BELIEVES that everyone on the planet is beneath him. Just remember his blimp ass is full of hot air…..
NotMax
@lowtechcyclist
I thought Taco Belle was intended to refer to the blonde spokesbot behind the lectern in the press room.
YY_Sima Qian
@jonas: Still need institutions to hand out credentials to people who will manage the people tightening screws, & especially to those who will control & maintain the financial system of repression & exploitation to keep the masses thoroughly dependent & ensure the value created accrue to the capital owners. The TechBro pseudo-libertarian feudalists have no need for such credentials, though.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@YY_Sima Qian: That is one of their dreams, but like at RFK jr as Health Security, they can only destroy, not build
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: You inspired me to look to see how the New College of Florida is doing. Reddit (from a year ago):
If an institution’s management doesn’t value academics, then entrance academic metrics will fall. This is known.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Ruckus
@YY_Sima Qian:
You are correct but this is actually not up to the level of their concept. They/he want to be not just in power but the lord high rulers of the entire planet. Their thinking may not be in any way logical, possible, intelligent, rational, constitutional, but when you walk around with your head up your (or someone else’s) rear exit port, your entire vision of the universe is shit. And they do have their heads located in a dark and smelly place. Most likely their own, but he is such a big _______ that there is plenty of room for all their heads.
Gvg
@Matt McIrvin: yes. I am personally not very brave I think, but I grew up and went to school with and have worked all my life with black Americans. They are just people. Some good, some bad, mostly just trying. Understandably more suspicious of people though. Anyway, I think I would not be so resistant to scary narratives if I didn’t know it was bullshit. School integration matters.
A lot of the testing and allowing school choice so gifted students can be in special magnet programs within a school here in Florida the last few decades have undermined integration. So have the budget cuts. The magnet programs allow schools to fudge the demographics of a school without it showing because the magnet is a school within a school, they don’t really mix. It also disguises failure rates. The teacher salary being tied to student test pass fail rates incentivizes the schools (actually forces them to) to go along with these measures. Each time the legislature raises the standards and cuts the overall budgets, there is no choice but to cut more and lie more. Students with problems are encouraged to leave because they threaten everyone’s barely ok wages. Teachers pay more costs of supply’s themselves. And parents in general haven’t faced this. It’s voters willingness to be fooled. Within this education cheapness, they have snuck back in a lot more segregation although it’s also economic. I really think this was a major reason they did it, and a reason some voters are still in favor. But they are wasting their own kids minds and the school seems to be so much less pleasant than it used to be, except I do think there is more awareness of bullying now.
They were totally a kid has to learn to handle bullying themselves, in my time. Now, many districts won’t tolerate it. They don’t always get it perfect, but they try.
Gvg
@lowtechcyclist: I have been trying to remember if Trump applied to Harvard and was turned down even with daddy’s money. I seem to recall his dad had to bribe to get him into Penn. undergrad. If he was personally turned down, that might explain the current spite. He is that petty and stupid.
lowtechcyclist
@NotMax:
That was the way it was used the first time I saw it, and I agree that usage makes the most sense. But since that first time, it’s all been references to Cheetolini. Like the “He’s a total TACO BELLE” I was commenting on. Definitely not a reference to Karoline Leavitt.
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
Well at least they are using the tools that they have.
Bullshit.
Fantasy.
At least it is easy to discuss their entire world, the tools in it, and how far up their own asses they have located their entire thought process. Amazing that they can still breathe, of course they aren’t breathing oxygen, just intestinal gases. Lots and lots of intestinal gases. A closed cycle of them.
Ruckus
@YY_Sima Qian:
Getting some?
Jackie
@Ohio Mom:
I’ve read three different F.D.A. food recalls this past week alone – issued well after they’d do any good. Recalls in late March, April and early May… Admitting to causing severe illnesses, but only NOW being announced in the media. The latest involving tomatoes and cucumbers a month ago – after they’ve been pulled OR already purchased and consumed.😡
RevRick
@Butch: @cmorenc: @Spanky: @m.j.:
We need to begin with the fact that Trump’s tariffs are stupid. He’s been riding this hobbyhorse since the 1980s, when Japan appeared to be the rising threat.
The thing is he wants three things to occur at the same time which are in utter contradiction.
1). Tariffs will raise a ton of revenue to fund the government. This is coupled with the idiocy that foreign countries are paying the tariffs. For this to happen, we would need to jack up tariffs to eye-watering levels and, more importantly , stick to them through thick and thin.
2). Tariffs will bring back manufacturing, thus reducing our need to import stuff. But if this happens, the revenues the tariffs produce would fall. But here again, we would need to stick to them through thick and thin.
3). Tariffs are a club to coerce other countries to give us “ fairer” trade deals. The whole idea is that the tariffs will perform a disappearing act when the deal is cut. This means that they won’t be a reliable source of income , nor will they provide the stability for American corporations to reshore manufacturing.
Options 1). & 2). require a long-term commitment to the tariffs, regardless of the short-term pain. Option 3). tosses them overboard as soon as they accomplish the goal.
Eyeroller
@Baud: AI systems already ask for money if you want more than the minimum capabilities. The subscription the model churniing out these recent videos is $250 per month.
lowtechcyclist
@Gvg:
It might be true, but I don’t think it matters. Harvard has been a symbol of everything the right hates about liberal education for approximately forever. It’s no surprise that they’d attack that particular citadel.
dr. luba
Open thread, so…….from Jim Wright today:
Susie Wiles: Good Morning, Mr. President! We have a situation.
Trump: I’ll say we do.
Wiles: The National Security Advisor is on his way, but the short version is Ukraine just blew up half of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet.
Trump:
Wiles:
Trump: Joe Biden was replaced in 2020 by a robot.
Ruckus
@Gvg:
He is that petty and stupid.
NO, say it ain’t so!
(OK I’ll go run my head into a wall for ten minutes for that one….)
Eunicecycle
@RevRick: the whole tariff thing never made sense, for exactly the reasons you state. It’s just been Trump’s hobby horse he’s ridden for decades. He has a mistaken idea of their success earlier in our history.
Ruckus
@RevRick:
No one with more than 2 brain cells to rub together ever said that shitforbrains was in any way Not Stupid. He lives in his own world, like a 5 yr old playing games. He’s been doing this for a rather long time – like his entire life, it’s just that he inherited a fair bit of money and that has gone to wherever he hides that gigantic but empty head of his. He has one thought – that he’s the best ever. Best what we’ll never know.
Eyeroller
@YY_Sima Qian: They may think they’re hurting the Sociology Department or the Women’s Studies Department or whatever other humanities and social sciences they hate so much, but their actions have done and will do the most damage to STEM fields.
They have canceled grants. They have cut funding. As to the foreign-student issue, most of my focus is on graduate students so I’ll let others discuss undergrads, but US science and engineering departments are utterly dependent on foreign-born graduate students, most from the PRC or Southeast Asia. I don’t know how many of those students are grant-supported versus having fellowships from their home countries; I know it’s a mix. Removing them will bring a lot of research to a halt in this country.
lowtechcyclist
@RevRick:
Also, the trade deficit is the ‘problem’ that tariffs are intended to solve. In Trump’s gray matter, having a perennial trade deficit means we’re getting taken advantage of by the rest of the world.
But the truth is exactly the opposite. The dollar is the world’s reserve currency, and that has put us in a privileged position where [gross oversimplification ahead] the rest of the world sends us stuff, we send them dollars, and everybody’s happy.
If anyone’s taking advantage of anyone else, it’s us. Why we’d want to have to do the work that someone in China is currently doing for us, I don’t know. It makes no sense to me.
RevRick
@Eunicecycle: Tariffs “worked” when our federal government was a Post Office with a weak military attached and protected our “infant industries “, because everybody but Britain had infant industries.
trollhattan
@Gvg: Would be 100% on brand. And it’s a hilarious added chapter that Prince Jared’s dad had to buy a building to get his little loser into Harvard. I think before dad had to do his stint in the big house.
RevRick
@lowtechcyclist: Basically, the rest of the world is subsidizing our lifestyle allowing us to consume 106% of what we produce.
Kim Walker
I’m thinking Don Taco or Taco Don. Taco belle is is good for the spokesbot.
gene108
I remember George W. Bush getting this sort sycophantic help after the Iraq invasion, with the “better to fight them over there, than fight them over here” rhetoric.
Seems to be a Republican trait to fall in line with the boss, as long as the boss is popular with their voters.
Another Scott
@lowtechcyclist: Dean Baker likes to remind us of accounting identities that indicate that the budget deficit and the trade deficit are kinda tied together. And it makes sense, eventually. If you add up total national income and savings, then it has to equal total national spending and deficits (because they’re totals).
The trade deficit is mostly caused, as you indicate, by the over-valued dollar.
Of course, 47 doesn’t understand anything about how the real world works beyond one-on-one dominance displays, so he cannot have any sensible solution to any real problems.
CEPR.net:
47 destroying the economic and social appeal of the USA will help drive down the value of the dollar, eventually, (but eventually we’re all dead), and so winning??
:-/
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Tom Levenson
@Matt McIrvin: See Loren Graham’s marvelous short book The Ghost of the Executed Engineer for an account how exactly this dynamic played out in the Soviet Union.
WaterGirl
@Kim Walker:
Taco Don is awesome.
Taco Belles for all the supposedly-beautiful-women-in-the-administration. And on FOX “non-News”.
MagdaInBlack
@lowtechcyclist: This.
Ruckus
@cmorenc:
You clearly don’t understand that Trump has successfully negotiated a concept of a plan to arrive at a concept of a plan for discussing a concept of a plan for tariff agreements with multiple countries, a feat that is only possible because Trump is the best deal-artist ever, very bigly so.
Fixit for you.
Scout211
Trump (probably): “Stem fields? Who cares about plants anyway? Cut those funds!”
Redshift
@Ken B:
I’ve been thinking the same thing. We need to figure out a good meme, but also Dems should complain about how weak he is in dealing with Putin (like TACO, it has the advantage of being true.)
Putin does things like bombing while Trump is talking to him, Trump days he’s big mad stamps his feet on TS, and then does nothing. Any time he vaguely threatens anything, Putin says he’s working on a ceasefire offer, Trump backs down or undercuts the Europeans, and after weeks of bombing, the “offer” is (again), give us everything we want and we’ll start to talk about a ceasefire.
Over and over again. There’s no deal-making, it’s just being weak and getting rolled.
Trivia Man
@Matt McIrvin: the most infuriating thing is – the dan rather story was true. They faked real documents. The secretary at the TANG said “that is what i wrote but those arent my documents.”
Absolute master class in rat fuckery. Leaked it to a reputable journalist … dying of cancer do he couldnt identify his source. Preplan the response so people were arguing type fonts and kerning BEFORE THE EPISODE FINISHED.
Trivia Man
@Matt McIrvin: back in the cold war i read about an ambitious proposal – take the top 1,000 (or 5k or some large number) of the most influential political and business leaders in USA and USSR and swap children for a year of study abroad. I think the proposal i saw was 10-12 years old. Young enough to be impressionable , old enough to have real discussions.
They learn about people and culture but also act as high profile hostages. Intriguing suggestion.
WTFGhost
No, no, no, that was *executive* time. “Trump time” is the time his aides spend, chopping onions, calling him sir with the concomitant tears in their eyes, and saying that he’s wonderful for working such long hours, while resetting the clocks, so Trump thinks it’s 8pm when it’s actually 9:43am, so the entire West Wing can blow off the rest of the day on a giant LAN party, while making bets as to how many children they can cause to die through action, or inaction, just to piss off the liberals.
Trivia Man
@Ohio Mom: Exactly – few if us have the resources or baseline knowledge to vet the breaking news. About the best i can hope for id to check multiple sources. If they all have the identical clip and nothing else that is a huge red flag. Much more ch easier to fake or create one thing than multiple things that agree consistently.
JoyceH
@dr. luba: We really need to have a discussion about that! Because Trump really did post to his Dollar Store Twitter that Biden had been “executed in 2020” and replaced by a robot. That’s the behavior of a madman. I want to see the press corp asking about that. Trump was president in 2020 – did he hallucinate killing Biden? Of course the staff will claim that he was joking, but sane presidents don’t joke like that.
dr. luba
@JoyceH: He was reposting a truth/tweet/post by some other deranged individual. But even so, if he were not demented, why do it?
Did he believe it?
Did he think it was “funny”? (Right wing “humor” is strange. And not understandable by those with empathy and/or a functioning cortex.)
It seems Jake Tapper chose the wrong president to write about for his book.
dr. luba
@NotMax: I don’t know. Remember when SNL had female actors playing all the members of Trump’s cabinet? They did it because it was funny, and because it pissed Trump off.
Calling Trump a Taco Belle would certainly irritate him, and the images are funny.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
Except that I like tacos – the food – not the asshole playing human as taco don.
You are ruining tacos for me…… I have shells in the fridge that I’m going to have to throw out…. And never eat them again. Think of all the restaurants in this country that serve Mexican food, no one is going to want eat there ever again. Now if you want a name, I use shitforbrains. Because he is and always has been. It’s not as nice but it’s likely difficult for him to ruin shit. At least any more than he already has.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: A thing that helps is that Harvard wasn’t particularly loved by the left either, for its establishment/ money-elite connections. So it wasn’t a target they’d rush to defend.
Ruckus
@Redshift:
it’s just being weak and getting rolled.
Would you ever in your life have expected different or do so in the future from this person?
Ruckus
@Gvg:
He is that petty and stupid.
Isn’t it nice when someone gets old they don’t lose the concepts that everyone knew them for?
Matt McIrvin
@dr. luba: Right- wing humor is bullying and based on hyperbole (which they misname as “irony”), and it does double duty as a trial balloon. They’re always trying to push the envelope of acceptable discourse while reserving the right to call it a joke if it flops.
There are radical leftists who use a similar mode but it’s alien to liberals.
Jackie
Question for soccer experts: While channel surfing came across a U-20 woman’s soccer championship game – USA vs Puerto Rico.
Question is, isn’t Puerto Rico a part of the US in soccer world? They’re US citizens…
lowtechcyclist
@RevRick:
Yeppers! It’s one hell of a sweet deal, and Trump, being so dumb that he not only doesn’t see it, he’s got it exactly backwards – being that dumb, he’s gonna give it away if we don’t watch it.
Splitting Image
@Jackie:
Nations in football are often a little different from usual. England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland each have their own national teams.
Gloria DryGarden
@lowtechcyclist: thank you. We don’t enjoy our gender being used as an insult.
meanwhile, what another Scott said. I think of this taco thing as bear baiting. We don’t want him to retaliate by hiking up tariffs.
spite and revenge have been major motivators for the guy.
Another Scott
@Jackie: The world of international sports can be weird.
E.g. National Olympic Committees, not Countries, participate in the Olympics:
Ukraine was a founding member of the UN, separate from the USSR.
Human stuff is weird.
Best wishes,
Scott.
lowtechcyclist
@trollhattan:
That little loser’s got his own jet airplane, that little loser is a millionaire
Sorry, those words just popped into my head. It’s Tom Levenson’s fault (hi Tom!) – I recently finished Money for Nothing, so naturally I can’t get rid of the song.
brantl
@Raoul Paste: how about a taco truck right out in front of the White House? I would love to put in some money to make that happen. I think that would be hysterical.
Jackie
@Splitting Image:
I know they’re all under the UK umbrella, but they’re each individual countries.
So that didn’t clarify my puzzlement.
brantl
@m.j.: I don’t know what you call them, I call them morons.
jonas
@Gvg: Trump went to a military prep school, but was a poor student and I think his family had no illusions about him actually getting into Harvard, if he was even interested. He ended up at Fordham for a little while, but his dad then arranged for him to transfer to Penn, where a family friend was in the admissions office.
Jackie
@Another Scott: Ok, thanks for the detailed explanation. 👍🏻 Territories are in their own division.
Jackie
@brantl:
ICE is salivating…
Redshift
@Ruckus:
Of course not, but the point is that he can’t take anyone saying he’s not tough and brilliant, so correctly calling him weak might actually push him to do something about it. And even if not, it would piss him off like the taco thing.
Gin & Tonic
Tomorrow’s talks between Ukraine and russia should be wild. Ukraine will be represented by Defense Minister Umerov.
brantl
I saw a picture where someone said that they had written, sky-written “taco” over Mar-a-Lago, does anybody know if that’s true?
I just wish that they had written “Surrender, taco boy”, instead.
Ruckus
@WTFGhost:
By George I think he’s got it!
Ruckus
@Redshift:
Well pissing him off does seem to be the thing that gets the most response. But with so many doing this his head must be about ready to swivel right off. Be a shame for that to happen.
Tony Jay
@Jackie:
Probably a matter of the football associations under which leagues have historically been organised. In the UK each of the constituent nations (plus Northern Ireland) have their own FAs, and it’s technically the FAs that provide the organisational umbrella under which each ‘national’ team is assembled. It’s probably something similar with Puerto Rico and the US.
MagdaInBlack
@Gin & Tonic: I’m looking forward to Adam’s update this evening
Gloria DryGarden
@brantl: I saw it in a video, and the theme music was definitely from the surrender Dorothy scene we all know and love.
can’t identify the location, was wondering if was true..
Gloria DryGarden
@lowtechcyclist: bandidos isn’t romanticized for me.
a student from Mexico told us in English class that her niece had been kidnapped. The family rallied and raised a lot of money to get her back alive. The outcome worked out, but their week of terror was horrid. And student have told stories about the cartels and banditos just coming to your door, if you have nice things, a nice house, and saying we’re taking this, you have an hour to get out.
in hearing these stories I’m only a degree or two of separation away from it, and it’s real, and harsh, and not just something in the news.
ditto the harrowing immigrant stories of how they got here.
the taco don stuff is great entertainment value for us, and we need the chance to snark and mock, we do. But I’m aware that baiting the bear is not a good idea.
he wants to be seen as strong, a hammer, but also to be good for business, effective in his deals. This situation puts him between a rock and a hard place. It’s horrible how he can’t take being called out for his actions, lies, and effects. i wish we knew how to be rid of him, but also to be rid of the more skilled people that want all this destruction, the ones who’ll take his place, with their authoritarian theocratic fascist agendas
karen gail
For some reason “Wormtongue” comes to mind every time I see Stephen Miller.
catclub
@Quiltingfool:
Yes! amazing
The US Air Force can only wish they could wipe out 1/3 of Russia’s strategic bomber force in one day.
Iron City
@brantl: As a coda to the June 14 festivities a parade of all the taco trucks in the DMV, oh why think small, the whole mid-atlantic. Follows the official parade for miles and miles then drives around and around the White House or follows it to wherever they try to escape to.
In DC , Mar a Lardo, Virginia, New Jersey or wherever he goes…. taco trucks.