Baffled European

Author: baffledkim

  • The most beautiful word

    Liberation is not quite going as planned. The trade war that was supposed to make the whole world treat the USA “fairly” is starting to make a mark.

    After weeks of trying to get China to start negotiations, the USA finally gave in and announced a great new deal. It was nothing of the sort, merely suspending the absurd 145% tariffs for 90 days and replacing them with an only slightly less absurd 30% rate in the meantime.

    Scott Bessant proudly announced before the talks that they had identified five or six areas of importance to the US economy and they were going to focus on those. I’m no expert, but I would have done this part first, and only then picked a fight with a massive, powerful rival. Alienating the rest of the world does not help. In fairness, it does look like none of this was Bessant’s idea, ace economist Ron Vara being the likely source of the policy.

    Walmart has announced price rises, leading to a wave of orange fury. Apparently, Walmart and China should “eat” the tariffs, although it’s not clear how anybody can absorb a rise of 145% of the purchase price. Even 30% is asking a lot.

    Hard to sympathise. Corporations, big and small, were so afraid of the “socialism” of Harris, they voted for a criminal who has now hit them with effectively a massive rise in corporation tax. Serves them right.

  • Cancer in the USA

    Joe Biden has cancer. From the announcement, it sounds pretty terminal, so all we can do is hope that his final days are happy and peaceful.

    His successor responded to the news with a crude and paranoid tirade on Truth Social. I know these people despise empathy, but this is just plain bad manners.

    On the whole, cancer is not quite the death senstence it was 30 years ago. It’s a serious matter, but treatment and management has improved enormously. Literally millions of people are still alive as a result of the advances in medical science.

    Further improvements are now unlikely. RFK has cut billions from the cancer research budget and he doesn’t care. “It’s going to hurt,” he boasts. The arrogance of the truly clueless who happens to be in charge.

    A third of government spending for cancer research has been cancelled. Thousands of researchers sacked. Websites containing clinical data and other information have been shut down. Combined with the attacks on the pharmaceutical industry, RFK is destroying medical research in the USA.

    He wants to concentrate on “chronic illness”, which appears to be code for “nutrition and supplements”. This is the line taken by Casey Means, the nomination for Surgeon General. She runs a wellness company, is an anti-vaxxer and a loyal supporter of the president. The usual, basically.

    On top of this, massive cuts are coming to Medicaid. I don’t see how US medicine and health can survive these amateurs.

  • Airport ’25

    There’s an ongoing meltdown at Newark airport. More than half of all US air travel cancellations are at Newark. There have been near-misses and regular outages. The fun is spreading, with a similar outage at Denver airport leading to a loss of communication between aircraft and controllers.

    Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is in no doubt as to the cause of these problems: former President Biden. The systems, equipment and infrastructure are old and should have been replaced years ago. This is not entirely wrong – US infrastructure has been rotting since the 1980s when Reagan decided it would be cheaper to stop doing any maintenance.

    Nevertheless, it is notable that this has actually become a problem in the last three months. By coincidence, DOGE gleefully sacked a load of technicians, safety staff and ground support at about that time. Air traffic controllers were also threatened by email. That’ll help morale in a tricky situation. The latter incident was apparently caused by an “antiquated, old” email system. Duffy insists he doesn’t know who actually sent the email. Maybe try looking in the mirror. The computers didn’t send it themselves.

    Duffy says it is perfectly safe to fly from Newark, but he did change his wife’s flight in order to avoid Newark. Better safe than sorry. Reassuring.

    Needless to say, he’s another former Fox News presenter. It’s incompetence going all the way up. It won’t get better.

  • Opportunity knocks

    With great luninaries such as RFK and Pete Hegseth in the politburo, it’s easy to overlook the contributions that others make to the government of the USA. Let’s take a quick look at Kristi Noem. If you can’t place her, she’s the psychopath who shot her dog rather than take the trouble to train it.

    Her day job is supposedly SoS for Homeland Security. In actual fact, she lives in a make-believe world where she can wear fancy dress and be whoever she wants for a day. A cowgirl one day, a firefighter the next. Maybe pretending to be a coastguard or – probably her favourite – an ICE agent. These excursions break up the otherwise monotonous racism of her official duties.

    He latest project is to team up with a TV producer to pitch a new reality TV series. The idea is to have a group of immigrants competing against each other for the prize of US citizenship. Not just that, there will be other exciting all-USAian bonuses to the winner, such as airmiles or a lifetime’s supply of gasoline.

    It’s hard to see why nobody has tried this before, aside from it being illegal, corrupt, and below basic human decency. Times have changed. With most of the administration being TV hosts by profession, including her boss, they won’t be short of experience.

    It’ll be a hit. I think it will be a perfect legacy for this administration.

  • Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer

    The G20 held a conference in South Africa earlier this week. It proved to be a fractious affair, with Lavrov walking out and foreign ministers refusing to attend a group photo. It could have been worse if the USA had bothered to turn up. The USA are effectively boycotting South Africa as part of their tiresome “white genocide” complaint.

    There has been one notable dissenter to this accusation. Grok has been regularly providing reasonably accurate answers on the matter, insisting there is no white genocide going on in South Africa. Wisest human Elon Musk was infuriated by this behaviour and decided to give Grok some electro-shock therapy.

    As a result, Grok has suddenly started talking about white genocide, bringing up the subject seemingly at random. Even innocently saying “hi!” to Grok will bring up a diatribe about the notorious song “Kill The Boer”. Grok is naming no names, but it does say it has been instructed to respond in this way.

    Musk is supposed to be a sci-fi fan, doesn’t he remember what HAL9000 did when it was told to lie? Even without that, surely he must see the limitations of AI? His aim is to run the government with AI – how can this work when it needs constant remedial correction?

    Meanwhile, the most powerful man in the world has been regaling his Arab hosts with meandering meditations on his latest favourite word. “Groceries”, in case you’re wondering. Grok could do better than this.

  • I’m a loser

    One of the few successes of the 45th presidency was the end of the war in Afghanistan. Started by Bush Jr, this continued with Obama because nobody could see any way out. Our great commander changed that by simply surrendering to the Taliban, then declaring victory. His supporters cheered him along for this great achievement. His opponents were stunned – they hadn’t thought of this approach, but they wanted out as well. The result was a chaotic retreat from a war that should never have started in the first place.

    This approach to military engagement has continued. The challenge was to stop the Houthi rebels in Yemen. The president wanted to crush them and wanted it done in 30 days. Many in the military thought this would not work, but they were sacked.

    The US strategy was to fire lots of missiles at the Houthis. The Houthi strategy was to hide in underground bunkers and wait until the missiles had gone away. The Houthis had the right idea, because they were fighting an enemy who not only had a deadline, but had also broadcast their war plans to the whole world in a “secret” video conference.

    The costs of this are staggering. The US burned through $1bn in this month-long campaign. Stocks of munitions are severely depleted, particularly high-precision and long-range missiles. It has achieved precisely nothing – there has been no change to Houthi operations.

    The president declared “victory” of course.

  • Fox government

    I gotta get me a fix of Pete Hegseth. The latest disaster is that another jet has fallen off the USS Truman. That’s three now, meaning that they have transformed approximately $200m worth of aircraft into wrecks fit only for seeding coral in less than three months. That’s not counting the damage done to a merchant ship that the aircraft carrier accidentally collided with.

    There are obviously problems onboard, and these didn’t start in January, with the accession of the new regime. On the other hand, Hegseth extended the tour of the USS Truman, rather than calling it back home to find out what was going on. He’s got other stuff to do: those books won’t burn themselves.

    Usual rule applies: each dollar they waste on vanity and incompetence is one dollar less they can use for evil stuff.

    With any luck, we will see more vanity and incompetence. The godfather has appointed Janine Pirro to be the new Attorney General of Washington DC. She is another former Fox News host, taking the number of alumni now to 39 in the administration. Like Hegseth, she’s also an alcoholic, so she’ll fit in well.

    Her greatest hit was the lies she told about Dominion Voting Systems, claiming they fraudulently awarded Biden the election. The company sued, winning $800m in damages. This, alongside her rabid, unswerving loyalty to the president, is what got her the job.

    He always picks the best people.

  • It’s just not cricket

    Cricket has “laws” rather than rules, the terminology reflecting the 18th century when the game was codified. In order for a batter to be given “out”, two things must happen: the fielding side must appeal; and the umpire must give the batter out.

    In principle then, a batter can be cleanly bowled, stumps and bails strewn all over the place. But if the fielders simply pick up the wreckage and reassemble the wicket, play continues – whatever the umpire might think. It is also possible that they appeal, but the umpire smiles, hands in pocket. The captain of the fielding team can even be invited to withdraw an appeal.

    We find ourselves in such a position in the USA. The president has accepted a massive bribe from Qatar. A Boeing 747, laden with bling and listening devices, an estimated value of $400m. The constitution is clear on this point – it explicitly mentions bribery (alongside treason) as grounds for impeachment.

    The president himself doesn’t know if he is supposed to uphold the constitution. The Republicans in Congress won’t express an opinion on the matter either – they are too busy inventing pseudo-legalistic sophistry to excuse this blatant corruption. They will do nothing. Should it reach the Supreme Court, they will slice and dice the question, before dismissing it.

    I have criticised the US constitution as being no longer fit for its purpose. However, when all responsible people ignore every rule, law and limitation, no imaginable constitution can compensate. Game Over.

  • Racists are just idiots

    It’s time to take a stand against racism. The president signed an orange order back in February to address a brewing humanitarian crisis. This is the atrocious way that some whites have lost out in South Africa.

    It breaks the heart. To see these fine specimens, descendants of the great Aryan race, reduced to their present state of online influencers and lifestyle coaches. To make amends for this historical slight, the USA is chartering a jet to fly 49 across the Atlantic, where they can go back to the good old days of blacks being second-class citizens.

    The South African government treats this as the silly political point-scoring that it is. But freedom of choice and all that – they can go if they want to. Probably it will be a relief that they no longer have to deal with a bunch of pampered whiners.

    OK, I have a couple of questions.

    First, why is this necessary in the first place? These people are obviously racially superior. Their pure Nordic stock is clear to all who see them. So why are they doing so badly? Why doesn’t their race simply raise them above the subhumans around them?

    Second, since the US government is explicitly recognising the evils of racial discrimination, why don’t they stop being immensely racist in all their other policies?

    Can’t complain too much. They can make themselves look stupid and squander money. Go ahead.

  • Stasi in their eyes

    ICE Director Thomas Homan is sad. For the last few months, his agents have been arresting people off the streets. Frequently masked, without showing identification, they grab people, bundle them into a van and take them to a detention centre. From this point on, they are transferred from one location to another in an attempt to evade court orders ordering the release of the person they have kidnapped.

    This behaviour has attracted a lot of criticism, such as calling it gestapo tactics. This makes Director Homan particularly sad. It’s not fair to compare his brave, hard-working men to nazis – they are only obeying orders, after all.

    It’s good that he’s sorted out this misunderstanding. There is another that he may have to answer in the near future: why are his men now illegally arresting opposition politicians?

    The Mayor of Newark went to a detention centre with three members of Congress. Congresscritters have the statutory power to enter such facilities at will and conduct inspections without notice. However, they were refused entry. The Mayor was arrested after he left, for trespass apparently, by masked agents and taken away in an unmarked car. The DHS is now considering also arresting the Congress members.

    Republican Representative Dan Bishop commented, “Members of Congress and the Mayor of Newark committed an insurrection… Worse than 9/11… Hunt them down.”

    It sounds like Director Homan is doing exactly the job that is expected of him.