Tag: Donald Trump

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So farmers and hotel companies are having trouble finding replacement for immigrants who, fearing for their safety, are leaving these jobs because they are vulnerable targets for ICE raids. Trump, being a hotelier and dependent on this same immigrant labor force, is now being forced to choose between cheap labor or cracking down on illegal immigration.

The whole point of Trump and the Republican’s campaign against illegal of immigrants, as Matt Walsh points out, is Americans now will take these jobs at a higher and more livable wage. Labor will become more dear and thus business will have to pay higher wages in order to fill those jobs.

And it was not some unintended consequence of their actions. Trump and his cronies said as much in their campaign. Immigrants are taking jobs from Americans. Get rid of the illegal immigrant and the Americans would take the jobs. The problem these economic wizards didn’t count on is that Americans would refuse to do these jobs at the immigrant low wage.

You can have low pay jobs with immigrant labor (more workers) or higher paying jobs with American labor (less workers) but you can’t have low wages with just American labor. It is all down to supply and demand.

Trump, being a Wharton School of Economics graduate, should know this. That he continues to have problems with understanding basic Capitalist theory is trouble particularly since he sees Capitalism as the solution to USA’s economic woes. He was wrong about tariffs and he is wrong about immigrant labor. He also gives an inordinate value to bullying people as a method of negotiating.

Adam Smith, Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand would be appalled.

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The problem with nuanced explanations about emotionally charged situations is that people are getting pretty worked about it. People are seeing violence on the streets of Los Angeles. Saying things like we are handling the situation, the protesters are mostly peaceful, the president is breaking all historical protocol on how these situations are handled is fine when people are discussing budget deficits. It is all together a different story when you have rioters on the streets. The only appropriate answer is this is a big problem and we welcome all the help we can get.

Unfortunately the ever crafty Donald Trump doesn’t do nuance while Gavin Newsom can’t stop himself from trying to explain the unexplainable. Yes, this is a shit sandwich but it isn’t a lot of shit and we can get rid of shit if the President would only leave us alone to do our jobs. Don’t get me wrong, Newsom is absolutely right but sometimes being right doesn’t stop someone from looking ineffective in a dangerous situation.

Some of the protesters have gone over the line. Yes Trump provoked it and this certainly needs to be said but not by a man who has rioters loose in his state. Other people can point that out. Newsom needs to blunt an effective attack on his competence.

Admittedly Newsom is in a difficult situation. Trump is taking advantage of a situation he created. This doesn’t matter when police are under attack and cars are being set on fire. Newsom is already, somewhat undeservedly, trying to remove the egg from his face based on the January fires that devastated portions of the city. He does’t need more damage to his competence.

Middle-class people disapprove of rioting. They also have a tendency to vote. They might prefer, no matter how much they hate the man, a person who says this is wrong, the people who should take care of it aren’t taking care of it and I will take care of it as a better person for the job over someone giving a nuanced explanation of why there are rioters in his state and why he doesn’t need the President’s help.

So maybe, for the time being, a better plan would be to say I welcome the President’s help in getting this situation under control and immediately try to start working with Trump on containing the violence. This gives Trump some impetus to work with Newsom on resolving the problem.

Plus it might make things awkward for Trump who would then be forced to work with local authorities on a town they know well. If he preferred to go it alone. Newsom can say he tried to work with Trump but his assistance was declined. Thus, if things go South, and given Trump and his cronies penchant for going off half-cocked about things, it would probably go South pretty fast without the co-operation of Newsom and local authorities, then Trump would be holding the shit sandwich while Newsom could shrug his shoulders and say he tried.

There is a potential for blood in the streets because Trump and his cronies seem to be looking for a way to assert control. Unfortunately the potential for blood is already there. I don’t know about you but it sounds really dangerous for two different armed groups independently trying to put down a small riot than to have one co-ordinated force. Worse still it would be Democrat fighting Republican in the streets.

No doubt, this wouldn’t be a win for Newsom but it certainly would be better for him than looking like an incompetent ninny.

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There is something a little lame about Musk saying Trump has a connection to the infamous Jeffrey Epstein. It would matter if Musk discovered this connection and turned on Trump because of it. That isn’t the story here. It was more of another stone to throw at Trump as Musk was walking out the door. The truth is if he really cared about this sexual abuse accusation he never would have taken the DOGE job in the first place.

But he did with full knowledge of Trump’s connection to Epstein. The abused girls didn’t matter when he was working well with Trump. The only reason they matter now is Musk thinks he can hurt Trump with this information. How brave.

What a morally bankrupt man. There are no other words for it. Well, maybe — what an asshole.

The good news here is that he is taking on Trump. There is nothing quite as much fun as two assholes going after each other in a blood fight. You don’t have to root for a winner and hopefully they both come out of this rumble irreparably damaged. Fingers crossed.

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Christiane Amanpour says she prepares for a trip to the United States now like she is preparing for a trip to North Korea.

I believe that her preparations may be different with Trump and his cronies in charge but North Korea — a country so backward that there are no lights on at night and where there is no political opposition whatsoever seems a bit of a stretch. More importantly it obviously isn’t the least bit true. The lights are very much on in the USA and the opposition to Trump is both active and vigorous. The mere fact that she is saying this while in the United States undermines her own statement.

She has a point. Unfortunately it got lost in the hyperbolic nature of her statement. This is especially damaging for someone who is a journalist. Maybe a comedian could get away with the North Korean comparison but someone who conveys important information to the public it calls into question their judgment. And, to be clear, she wasn’t joking so can I trust what this journalist is saying?

Now I think I can because of her long record of accurate reporting but what about red America? People who are already deeply suspicious of journalists. They might think if she believes that traveling to the USA is akin to North Korea, she is clearly someone who has lost her senses or, at least, her ability to reason.

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The most mind boggling aspect about Qatar’s gift of an airplane to Donald Trump is his seeming lack of understanding that this is wrong and why he should pass on the gift. This isn’t a bottle of whiskey or a box of chocolates, this is an airplane.

There is a difference and, if he had paid attention to the HR presentations that most working stiffs suffer through every year, he would know why. The last company I worked for repeatedly reminded its employees that they never should take a gift over $100 because, even if everything is above board, it looks suspicious.

The best case scenarios on this, and I mean by that you can still plausibly claim to be honest, are still wrong. If someone has been kind or generous to you, you are more inclined to help them. This is unfair to other less generous customers and, more importantly, may cloud your judgment on what is right for the company. It shifts the power dynamic in a business relationship. The gift giver has this little bit of extra power over the gift receiver when making difficult decisions.

Trump, despite his unsubstantiated claim of being a good businessman, is clearly ignorant of modern business practices which are both pretty basic and universal. That he is unable to see the problem with this is shocking because I absolutely believe him. He doesn’t understand the power shift. He doesn’t understand why it would be wrong to give consideration to a country who has given him plane. I am sure he thinks it is all right to scratch your back if you scratch mine.

This should be more than troubling to Republicans. And lets face it, the Democrats just aren’t in any position to do anything about it. It has to come from Republicans. The sad thing is they think they are clinging to power. But whatever power they had is long gone. The only person who holds significant power in the Republican party is Trump. The rest are his lackeys. Sadly, they appear to be really suited for the role.

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Dear God. Donald Trump has sent out a picture to his many fans as him dressed as the new pope. Isn’t this really disrespectful to Catholics? I think so but then I am just not sure any more. That is how jaded I have become about Trump’s behavior. I really don’t know what is acceptable behavior any more. It seems wrong for the President of the United States to do this but I could see a comedian doing it and being perfectly fine with it. Where is the line?

And forget Hitler, I think we have moved into Caligula territory now. I am pretty sure we are pretty close to Trump announcing a horse to the cabinet.

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Matt Margolis, a conservative columnist, was talking about the left wing threats to Donald Trump. Unfortunately, these are real and not particularly helpful. Many people believe that he won the 2024 election when he stood up after the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania.

I am no fan of Trump but I think assassinating him is a bad idea and wrong. First, he is a human being. It is vitally important for us to recognize that unlikeable people will always be a part of our lives. Yes, he is an asshole, but assholes deserve the same rights as we do — even if they are acting pretty dangerously.

This is why we respect the rights of murderers despite their unforgivable behavior. Murderers deserve to be heard. This is particularly important when the sentence is death. So this means I have to accept Donald Trump, as a fellow human being, shouldn’t be killed because some person, acting on his own judgement, decides Trump must die.

Let’s forget the Hitler comparisons too. Trump is disturbing. He has authoritarian instincts and needs to be checked at every possible opportunity but he fails miserably as a Hitler. Comparing Trump to Hitler is unfair to Hitler. Trump doesn’t even come close to Hitler’s evil machinations. Judges are still independent, the press is still free and the Democrats are still vocal, if a little ineffective, in opposition. He also has, after almost universal criticism, backed down on tariffs.

Cutting off the head to end Trumpism is a rather naive and lazy. It allows you to think the problem is handled when it hasn’t been handled at all. Half the country voted for the man. They will all still be alive after Trump’s death. How will they respond to an attack on their man. Something tells me it could bring on more violence. Once there is a body count it is difficult to see how things will end well.

Here is the bottom line for me: You can be both appalled by the attack on Governor Shapiro and be OK with Luigi Mangione killing a CEO at the same time. The same applies for Trump. Once you accept political violence as OK for your side, you also are tacitly approving it for anyone who disagrees with you. You don’t abhor violence, you abhor violence being used against your side. This is why anyone who uses political violence has to be condemned.

Is it a gamble. Yes it is a better bet for me than the alternative.

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Since Trump’s election, I continue to be puzzled by the passivity of the Billionaires Boy’s Club. The system, though imperfect and could be a lot better, has worked reasonably well for a broad swath of the American people particularly the wealthy. The very same men who explicitly or tacitly support Trump’s rampage against the Federal Government are attacking the system that made them rich.

What more can these people at the very top of the heap want? Despite their frequent complaints to the contrary, the American people, and the rich in particular, are taxed very little. These billionaires act as if the government has actually hobbled their chances on obtaining wealth. Musk has in the neighborhood of 244 billion dollars. Bezos has 197 billion. You can see the whole list here. They are billionaires for Christ’s Sake. What has government deprived them of? A 15% Federal tax bill?

Also, notice how Musk and his DOGE buddies are only going after programs that help the poor and the Middle Class — Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare — while remaining silent about tax breaks for billionaires. Tax breaks, which almost exclusively benefit the wealthy with no expectation that the money they save from eliminated taxes are reinvested into industry, are good. While government programs that help the poor and the middle class are bad. Helping people only encourages dependence on the Federal Government.

So, the already wealthy are demanding even more sacrifices from the less wealthy in order that the already wealthy can make even more money so that they will, hopefully, reinvest this money into the economy. Why are the already wealthy so dependent on the Federal Government for investment money? Of course, few people phrase the question that way.

More troubling is that there is no credible plan on how to replace this functioning system other than the economy will be so good that there will be no need for the federal government. I find it a little difficult to believe that the homeless will be shocked so profoundly by these new limitations that they will suddenly become employable. I, for one, would like a little more detail. What happens to the poor? What happens when Social Security is gone? How does this support better public education? How will healthcare became more accessible? Nothing but silence.

These people, who have benefited most from the present system, are just hoping that their immense wealth will protect them from the fallout of this chainsawing frenzy. The rich no longer have the idea of noblesse oblige that, because they have benefited from the system, they also have an obligation to help other people. They will watch the carnage from a safe distance. At least this is what they hope.

Burn it all down. None of it is any good anymore. We will figure out how to rebuild later. The old Viet Nam war adage applies here — we had to burn the village in order to save it.

Thanks for nothing.

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Steve Witkoff, the man President Trump charged with negotiating the end to the Russian/Ukrainian war, says there are two sides to the story and we should be open to hearing Putin’s side. WTF. I mean WTF. Putin does indeed have a story. He has been telling this story for some time now. The problem is his story fails to make the case for an armed invasion of a sovereign country. Nobody is buying what Putin is selling.

Well, that is until Trump and Witkoff come along to tell us that we haven’t given poor Vlad a fair shake. Witkoff tries to remind us that traditionally the Ukraine was a part of Russia. The border areas between the Ukraine and Russia have a lot of native Russians. People in these border regions voted recently to join Russia instead of staying in the Ukraine.

So what? The Ukraine was a part of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union against the will of the Ukrainians. To say that should factor in to Russia’s claim on the Ukraine seems absurdly unfair to the Ukrainians. They didn’t like it then and they don’t like it now.

The border regions between any two nations have people on both sides of the borders. There are Ukrainians on the Russian side of the border as well. Do the Ukrainians on the Russian side of the border give the Ukraine a rightful claim to parts of Russia. Borders are messy businesses. There is no way to put up a border that makes everyone happy. Somebody is going to be on the wrong side. Always.

But, then, when Putin invaded the Ukraine, he was after more than the border regions. He wanted the whole kit and kaboodle. So after invading the Ukraine, bombing Ukrainian cities, and failing to achieve his real objective — the whole of the Ukraine, he will settle for the border regions. Why should he get anything?

Trump say says the Ukrainians are unable to win this war. He might be right about that but neither can the Russians. Neither side can win the war so why is Trump asking the Ukrainians to eat the shit sandwich while Putin steals Ukrainian land and hobbles their ability to join in a larger European security network? And what does the Ukraine get in return — empty promises that they won’t invade again.

Trump will say they will get peace. Putin has already invaded the Ukraine twice, so really, this is nothing. Peace, you say. Well, not likely to be a very lasting one.

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Well, it looks like somebody in the Trump Administration is reading my blog about how insulting it was to send the vice-president’s wife to woo the people of Greenland. That blog was up for less than 24 hours when Trump changed his plans. Vice-President Vance is now going to Greenland with his wife.

It is nice to think my words have such power but people in the know are saying Trump is looking for some positive publicity after the Signal Group Chat Fiasco and it has absolutely nothing to do with my blog.

Just for the record, and based on no real evidence, I still think it was my blog.