Baffled European

Tag: trade war

  • Freedom and liberty

    “What’s your message to communist Zohdan?”

    A question at Tuesday’s press conference.

    How things have changed since January. The new administration banned AP from press conferences because they were insufficiently positive towards the president. They sued against the decision and won. The regime blocked them anyway.

    By now, all recognised press organisations have been banned from official press conferences. What remains are a set of influencers from Twitter and Youtube who agree with the project and will flatter the president appropriately. It’s no wonder he hated the NATO presser so much last week. That was the first time he has faced real questions for ages.

    “We’ll have to arrest him,” came the reply. “We don’t need a communist.” He went on to threaten a number of other political opponents with deportation, some of whom were born in the USA.

    Bondi is on the case, trying to find ways to suppress opposition.

    That’s where we are, less than six months in. The president talks about arresting and deporting his enemies to a tame press and that’s the way things are.

    Then there’s also the reports from Abrego Garcia’s trial, where he describes the harrowing torture the regime put him through. No wonder they tried so hard to stop him coming back. This is another one of the changes we have seen.

    I’m taking a break from this for a week or so. I’ve had enough of these monsters.

  • Deportation policy

    TACO. That’s been doing the rounds in the last couple of weeks. He always chickens out. He knows about this hashtag and unsurprisingly hates it.

    He’s blinked again though. The government is bringing Abrego Garcia back to the USA. It always seemed unlikely that there was absolutely nothing they could do to bring him back, especially since they were paying El Salvador for his incarceration.

    He will now stand trial on two criminal charges, as announced by Bondi herself. To no great surprise, the government’s case has already fallen to pieces. All they’ll have left is to blame activist judges for freeing Garcia. It’ll be interesting to see the consequences for this shameful, appalling episode.

    It’s kicking off in LA. ICE decided to show their power by going round in paramilitary gear to harass and abduct people. They’ve moved on from plain clothes and unmarked cars, they’ll show everybody who’s boss.

    This aggravated the locals, who quickly swamped the agents with sheer numbers. ICE escalated the situation they had created by firing tear gas into the crowd. Some officers were chased away in a hail of water bottles and stones. LAPD were called in to deal with the situation.

    ICE are furious and are blaming “political rhetoric” for causing the trouble. Sure, but it is their political rhetoric that is responsible for their terrible policy and inhumane actions.

    It’s going to be a long, hot summer.

  • Man’s crisis of identity in the earlier half of the 21st century

    Tim Burchett, a Republican representative from Tennessee, does not drink through a straw. Only women do that. I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t. Just put it in your mouth and suck a little, sweetie. Nobody is going to be marking you for technique and style.

    This revelation came in order to prove that he is definitely a macho manly man. Fox News reckons that real men don’t talk about how macho they are, they show it by not eating soup or crossing their legs. Obvious, really.

    This is not to mention the enthusiasm that all members of the administration have for cosplaying as soldiers. The impression they give is that of an alpha gorilla beating its chest to show its dominance, but the rest of the world just boggles at their aberrant behaviour.

    I guess the problem is that there is not much difference between men and women in reality. There’s no advantage either way for jobs like these. What they need to do is create artificial differences. Men are macho warriors, women are simpering bimbos. They constantly need to emphasise this, in order to prove that only men can perform these jobs.

    It’s not a new problem, nor is it confined to maga. They do make a big point of it however, and it would be better for everybody if they would just behave like normal people instead of oddballs and freaks. But then we wouldn’t have this problem.

  • Where will this lead?

    As well as a “word of the year”, Germany also has an “unword of the year”. The latter is a word or expression that undermines human dignity and democracy, or discriminates against groups, usually with some form of euphemism. Think “collateral damage”, which means “killing civilians”.

    The Unwort des Jahres 2023 was “Remigration”. This is a neutral-sounding replacement for “Ausländer raus” for the AfD and other identitarian groups. The idea behind it is to ruin the lives of millions and create a state of fear for many more, all to satisfy the paranoid hatred of racists. Nobody benefits from this insanity, but what else can you expect from blindly following baseless superstition?

    The German government of the 1930s spent a lot of time working on remigration in order to get rid of the undesirables in their population. After scratching their heads over the logistics for a number of years, they decided that murdering everybody and burning the evidence was the most cost-effective option.

    The State Department in the USA has found the resources to set up a new Office of Remigration. At a stroke, the US government places itself on the same level as the most extreme and radical neo-nazis in Europe. They have the same imaginary problem as 1930s Germany: millions of undesirables that the regime detests for no good reason. It’s only natural for them to form a group of ignorant racists to find some modern 21st century answers.

    I’m not optimistic.

  • 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.

  • Antipope

    Pope Leo XIV is the first pope born in the US. His views and actions seem to reflect a solid Catholic. You wouldn’t expect anything otherwise, him being pope, but there are general expectations. He meets them more or less.

    How did maga take the news? Initial excitement, as they fabulated he was a registered Republican, until a spoilsport showed he had no party allegiance. Then the bomb dropped. He had criticised JD Vance in a tweet. “Extremely concerning,” noted interplanetary space-hopper Elon Musk.

    This was only the first of many shocking revelations. He had retweeted a criticism of the president himself! Worse yet, he had repeatedly honoured George Floyd. “WOKE MARXIST POPE” screamed Laura Loomer.

    Maga are aghast. How could the Catholic Church possibly elect a pope who has publicly criticised their president? The answer was quick to come: there is a deep state within the Church which globalists are using to promote the woke agenda.

    These people hate everybody. Everything politicised over a few trigger issues. Utterly intolerant of anybody who thinks differently to them, to the extent they generate conspiracy theories to explain away opposing ideas rather than address them. This extends to the leader of the largest Christian church in the world – supposedly Christians themselves, they reject his message without listening.

    There’s no way to deprogram this level of fanaticism. I don’t know how anybody can deal with delusion like this. Removing them from power would be a good start.

  • Fallen star

    Energy Star was set up in 1992 to reduce the energy requirements of computers. Its success led to similar standards for lighting, heating and other appliances. Loads of numbers are thrown around to show its effectiveness: TLDR; it costs little and saves a lot.

    Obviously, maga denies climate change as part of their general rejection of reality. However ignorant and irrational, it is at least predictable. For some reason, they are also rejecting energy efficiency measures as well. Presumably the two issues are so tightly linked in their brains, they are unable to see any difference.

    They are cancelling Energy Star in the name of government efficiency. There will be no further drive to reduce energy consumption of equipment, nor will there be any further ratings of new products. This will hit all consumers, business as well as private.

    What is striking about this is the extravagent, willful waste of it all. It’s not enough for them to convince themselves that reality is a left wing conspiracy, they have to behave in the most inefficient way possible.

    Surely even those who hate environmental politics must recognise the value of lowering your outgoings? Is it about owning the libs? Or is it because the country is being run by oligarchs who don’t care about the cost?

    Whatever, they think they can outperform the rest of the world by being less efficient and having higher costs. It’s an interesting idea. See how it works.

  • Streamline, modernise, innovate

    Pete Hegseth appears to be bulletproof. For weeks now, people have been briefing newspapers about his vanity, incompetence and arrogance. Lots of people, even his own, at every possible level. He seems to be hated by everybody who comes into contact with him. And yet he remains in his job.

    This television presenter turned military genius has now revealed his plans for the future of the US armed forces. He wants bulletproof soldiers. Specifically bulletproof straight white cis male soldiers.

    One of the main reforms is to move away from heavy armour to light, mobile units that are nimble and quick to react in a modern warfare situation. Sadly for everybody, this has already been tried. A scourge of Gulf War II was the IEDs which would explode at the roadside, turning the vehicle going past into a motorised coffin.

    Still, that was a long time ago and humans have probably evolved since then. In any case, Pete is doubtless looking at the success of the Russians when they adopt such tactics. This is fine unless you also consider the Russians do this because they can’t afford anything better, and that their soldiers get blown to smithereens by anything resembling a well-equipped opponent.

    So these new units will be useless for any sort of war. Maybe controlling civilian areas? Not in the USA, surely? The population is too heavily armed. Mexico? Greenland? 51st state? All this policy will do is reaffirm the effectiveness of the Molotov Cocktail.

  • There’s only two Steve Jacksons

    It’s a strange fact that there is a Steve Jackson in the UK, who produces role-playing games, and a Steve Jackson in the USA, who produces card and board games. Although in the same business, there is rarely confusion. It’s a small market and customers know who they are dealing with. The two Steves have indeed worked together in the past.

    Steve Jackson USA is taking a real pasting from the new tariffs. Trouble is, his games have special dice, woodwork, plastics and tooling. They can’t source these from the USA. Not for lack of trying. There are simply no companies in the US that produce these parts. Even those who are interested do not have the capacity or expertise.

    The upshot of this is that a game which cost $25 will now cost $40. This is entirely because of the additional costs of the tariffs. They now have the choice of redesigning their games so that all parts can be sourced from the USA, or accepting that people can simply no longer afford to buy what is now a luxury product.

    That’s how it hits a small business in the USA. Spare a thought for Saint Pierre and Miquelon, a French collectivity near Newfoundland. They export $3.5m worth of seafood to the US each year. Because they don’t import anything, they have been hit with a 99% tariff, essentially destroying their economy. For a product that the USA evidently cannot produce themselves.

  • 4-dimensional chess

    Elon Musk was boasting a few days ago that his predictions have generally come true. This comes as a surprise to me.

    It turns out it was as long ago as 2013 that we all got excited about self-driving cars and their imminent arrival. Musk has made regular promises about such technology, usually several times a year, but still no self-driving cars.

    We all know he wants to go to Mars. In fact, he reckoned he would send two rockets there by the end of 2022. That moved to 2025, now 2029. Not to mention that StarShip, among all the rapid unplanned disassemblies, does not meet specifications and will probably never work as promised.

    Then there’s his Boring Company. The idea was to have a tunnel for public transport. He expects cars to travel through this tunnel at 250kmh. They don’t. His sales patter following the obvious failure is like that of a perpetual motion crank: the prototype is there, we just need more money.

    Predictions for Neuralink are for 2025. Maybe they will come true. On the other hand, research suggests that the human brain is like a very very slow modem in computing terms and cannot be linked to a gigabyte stream. I await the breakthrough.

    Most recently, he predicted he could put a puppet in charge of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Despite spending $25million on this project, and engaging in outright election fraud, he got that wrong as well.