Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Elon Musk’s AI called “Grok” says there’s a good chance:

Someone asked Grok, “What is the likelihood from 1-100 that Trump is a Putin compromised asset?”

Here’s the answer, which is fascinating:

Putin, based on publicly available information from 1980 onward, involves analyzing a complex web of financial ties, personal interactions, political behavior, and circumstantial evidence. This is not a definitive determination but an estimation grounded in patterns and data accessible as of March 4, 2025. The question highlights Trump’s consistent reluctance to criticize Putin juxtaposed against his frequent attacks on U.S. allies, which is a key behavioral indicator to consider alongside historical and financial context.

From the 1980s onward, Trump’s business dealings provide a starting point. Public records show he pursued real estate ventures with significant Russian financial involvement. In 1987, Trump visited Moscow, a trip facilitated by Soviet officials, sparking speculation about early cultivation by Russian intelligence—speculation later fueled by former KGB agent Yuri Shvets, who claimed Trump was targeted as a potential asset due to his ego and financial vulnerabilities. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, as Trump faced bankruptcies, he increasingly relied on funding from sources tied to Russia and former Soviet states. His sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, made statements reinforcing this: Donald Jr. in 2008 said, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” and Eric in 2014 claimed, “We have all the funding we need out of Russia.” The Trump Organization’s partnerships, like with the Bayrock Group (led by Tevfik Arif and Felix Sater, the latter with known Russian mafia ties), and sales of properties to Russian oligarchs (e.g., Dmitry Rybolovlev’s 2008 purchase of a Trump property for $95 million), suggest a dependency on Russian money that could create leverage.

Intelligence reports and investigations add weight. The 2017 U.S. Intelligence Community assessment concluded Putin authorized interference in the 2016 election to favor Trump, a finding supported by the Mueller Report, which, while not proving criminal conspiracy, documented extensive Trump campaign-Russia contacts (over 100 by some counts). The unverified Steele Dossier alleges kompromat from Trump’s 2013 Moscow trip during the Miss Universe pageant, a claim echoed by speculation about earlier visits. Leaked Kremlin documents reported by The Guardian in 2021 suggest Putin personally approved a 2016 operation to back Trump, viewing him as “mentally unstable” and exploitable, with potential compromising material from past Moscow visits. The disappearance of a classified binder of Russia intelligence post-Trump term, as reported by Reuters in 2023, further stokes suspicions of hidden ties.

Trump’s behavior as president and beyond is striking. He has never directly criticized Putin, even when pressed—e.g., at the 2018 Helsinki summit, he sided with Putin’s denial of election interference over U.S. intelligence. Post-presidency, Bob Woodward’s 2024 book War alleges Trump spoke to Putin up to seven times, including a secretive 2024 call at Mar-a-Lago. Contrast this with his attacks on NATO allies, calling them “delinquent” on payments, or his 2025 Oval Office clash with Ukraine’s Zelenskyy, where he blamed Ukraine for Russia’s invasion—echoing Kremlin talking points. This pattern deviates from decades of U.S. policy and aligns with Russian interests, like weakening NATO and Ukraine.

Counterarguments exist: Trump’s administration imposed sanctions on Russia (e.g., over Skripal poisoning in 2018), expelled diplomats, and armed Ukraine—actions Putin wouldn’t favor. Some argue his pro-Russia stance reflects a misguided belief he can outmaneuver Putin, not compromise. Yet these measures were often driven by Congress or aides over Trump’s objections, and he downplayed their significance, maintaining personal warmth toward Putin.

Weighing this, the financial ties (decades-long, opaque, and substantial), intelligence suggesting Russian intent, and Trump’s unwavering refusal to criticize Putin despite attacking allies tilt the scale. The lack of transparency—e.g., hiding tax returns, seizing interpreter notes after Putin talks—amplifies suspicion. No smoking gun proves direct control, but the “useful idiot” scenario, where Trump’s ego and debts make him unwittingly pliable, fits the evidence. Adjusting for uncertainty and alternative explanations (e.g., ideological alignment or naivety), I estimate a 75-85% likelihood Trump is a Putin-compromised asset, leaning toward the higher end due to the consistency of his behavior and the depth of historical ties. This range reflects the strength of circumstantial evidence tempered by the absence of conclusive proof, a gap unlikely to close without classified data.

Personally, I lean toward the Jonathan Chait explanation today, namely that Trump just likes Putin (and for the same reason so many of his followers do: he’s a white, manly man who hates the same people they do.)

During Trump’s first term, the theory that he loved Putin was complicated by his inability to overcome resistance by bureaucrats and his own hawkish advisers. This created room for analysts to accept explanations for Trump’s stance other than simple affinity for Putin. Now, however, he is able to quickly carry out such steps as cutting off weapons to Ukraine without sneaking around or being slow-walked by mid-level staff. Meanwhile, he publicly blames Ukraine for the ongoing war and accuses Zelensky of being a dictator who spreads hatred against Russia. The theory that Trump trusts and wants to help Putin can parsimoniously explain his rhetoric and actions.

Yep. I also think that it might just be a manifestation of his oppositional defiant disorder. People don’t think he should support Russia, so he is determined to do it. It’s the only way he knows how to make decisions since he can’t really understand anything complicated.

But I’m certainly willing to believe that Trump is a Russian agent. He’d say that was just smart business.

Nobody’s ever seen anything like it

Trump says he’s achieving the great liberation of America pic.twitter.com/KR4otLKQsh

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 5, 2025

If you were one of those people who has given up on the news since the election and decided to watch last night’s Presidential speech before a joint session of Congress (a state of the union in all but name) you had to come away a little bit shell-shocked by what you heard. President Donald Trump delivered what felt like an interminable litany of his alleged accomplishments over the course of an hour and 40 minutes that would make anyone’s hair stand on end if they hadn’t heard it all before.

To set the stage you would have had to know that the congressional Democrats have been hand wringing for days over how they were going to handle the speech seeing as he has been systematically dismantling the federal government and destroying the economy and existing world order. It just seemed wrong to behave as if this is business as usual despite the trappings of a normal State of the Union address. (In fact, one Representative, Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, stood silently holding a sign that said “this is not normal” until a Republican ripped it from her hands and tore it up as Donald Trump walked down the aisle to the podium.) In the end many decided not to attend while others wore matching pink clothing, held up signs that said “false” or “save Medicaid.” Some walked out at different times during the speech after Congressman Al Green of Texas yelled out and was forcibly removed. (Interesting that the same rule was not applied to Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Boebert when they mercilessly heckled Joe Biden.)

Trump noticed that none of them would stand or applaud saying,

 I look at the Democrats in front of me and I realize there is absolutely nothing I can say to make them happy or to make them stand or smile or applaud. Nothing I can do. I could find a cure to the most devastating disease, a disease that would wipe out entire nations or announce the answers to greatest economy in history or the stoppage of crime to the lowest levels ever recorded, and these people sitting right here will not clap, will not stand, and certainly will not cheer for these astronomical achievements.

He was angry that they weren’t clapping for the “astronomical achievements” he had not actually accomplished failing to recognize that they were not clapping or standing for the execrable achievements he has.

If one hasn’t been following these first chilling six weeks of Trump’s term they would have been stunned by the long list of depravities he has inflicted on the country already. He bragged that he had withdrawn from the Paris Climate accord, the World Health Organization,and the U.N. Human Rights Council. He boasted that he ended environmental restrictions and the electric vehicle mandate (which didn’t exist) ordered all federal workers to return to the office and stopped “weaponized government where, as an example, a sitting president is allowed to viciously prosecute his political opponent, like me.” He said that he’d signed an order making English the official language of the United States. renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America and restored the name of Mt McKinley to Denali, in Alaska.

All of this, and more, was announced with the usual Trumpian flourishes as one might expect. But the ecstatic response from the Republicans in the room to each and every one, replete with standing ovations and shouts of excitement was something to behold. But nothing brought out the whoops and roars of that side of the room than the litany of attacks on people of color (aka DEI) and transgender Americans, particularly children. In fact, he spent more time on the subject of transgender people than on any other issue, returning to it more than once, even going so far as to feature several alleged victims in the gallery, telling their stories in lurid detail. It was horrifically reminiscent of historical examples of other minorities being targeted as enemies of society. I think we all know where that leads.

He also spent an inordinate amount of time listing off examples of “waste fraud and abuse” found by the DOGE team, which he said was “headed by Elon Musk” a fact they’ve been trying to obscure in court cases. At one point he proclaimed that “the days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over” which elicited Democratic laughter and pointing at Musk, who had been ostentatiously introduced by Trump in the gallery.

Trump went on and on calling out USAID programs that he and the Republicans find entertaining to mock. He claimed they’ve found hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud which is a monumental exaggeration. But then so much of what he said last night was complete fiction.

Another interminable litany of lies was a dull recitation of alleged fraud in the Social Security rolls in which he seemed to be saying that there are tens of millions of fraudulent recipients who are collecting the checks of dead people. (This is not true, it’s been thoroughly debunked, even by the person Trump has elevated to commissioner.)

Trump made a great show of promising not to cut Social Security and Medicare in all of his campaigns so there’s a reason why he spent so much time degrading the system in this speech and it isn’t good. The way he described it sounded very much like the way he described the supposed cheating in the 2020 election which indicates they are working up a narrative to excuse the attack on the system that’s already underway with massive personnel cuts and the closing of offices. They’re coming for Social Security.

Interestingly, he didn’t spend much time on the tariffs or Ukraine the two subjects at the very center of the news cycle for the past week. He slammed Canada and Mexico with the usual nonsense about “subsidies” and announced that there are more tariffs on the horizon:

In new tariff news from this speech, Trump named the EU, China, Brazil, India, Mexico, Canada, and South Korea are the countries for possible April 2nd tariffs—that would cover the vast majority of US trade. He also reiterated he wants tariffs on food to start April 2nd.

— Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈 (@josephpolitano.bsky.social) 2025-03-05T03:20:55.289Z

He mentioned in passing that all this will cause “a little disturbance but we’re ok with that, it won’t be much” so there’s no need to worry our pretty little heads about it.

“There will be a little disturbance” — Trump on the economic impact of his tariffs pic.twitter.com/TCXor24Zn1

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 5, 2025

As for Ukraine, he implied that President Zelensky had capitulated by reciting a letter in which the Ukrainian president said he was ready to come to the negotiating table and thanked the Americans for their support. (Zelensky had actually published this on X earlier, in which he proposed partial cease fire terms and renewed his offer to sign the minerals deal.) Trump didn’t sound particularly excited about any of that I would guess because he has already checked out of any negotiation that requires Russia to concede anything.

All in all it was a pretty standard Trump speech. He pounded his chest, insulted the opposition, bragged about fantasy accomplishments and lied profusely.

And if you ever wondered exactly what is meant by “America First” Trump made that clear last night. He says he plans to “forge the freest, most advanced, most dynamic and most dominant civilization ever to exist on the face of this earth.”

Trump claims he’s going to forge the most dominant civilization ever on earth pic.twitter.com/eXJlt7wMuZ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 5, 2025

Pour one out for the new American Imperium.

Salon

Impeached immediately?

“Surprise! The madman stuff wasn’t an act,” Paul Krugman writes in his Substack.

Behold this CNBC headline from Tuesday: Dow tumbles again, loses more than 1,300 points in two days as Trump ignites trade war.

Stocks tumbled on Wall Street today as a trade war between the U.S. and its key trading partners escalated, wiping out ALL the gains for the S&P 500 since Election Day.

— Jon Cooper (@joncooper-us.bsky.social) 2025-03-04T17:19:14.515Z

Until recently, business leaders thought Donald Trump was their kind of guy, Krugman notes, but his childish imposition of tariffs on close trading partners may give the guys in suits pause. Or not. Power and privilege can make one blind to what others can see:

What those of us not cocooned in our corner offices see is that Musk let a bunch of Dunning-Kruger kids — too incompetent to realize that they’re incompetent — loose on federal agencies, where they began firing workers without trying to understand what these workers do or why it might be important. These firings have been followed in several cases by desperate attempts to rehire the lost workers, who turn out to have been doing things like, um, securing the nation’s nuclear weapons.

Swalwell: The stock market is crashing, and prices are rising. This guy has gone to the Super Bowl, the Daytona 500, and a UFC fight. He should go to the fucking supermarket and see what people are spending to feed themselves pic.twitter.com/JOn9ktQ7Fo

— Acyn (@Acyn) March 4, 2025

Musk’s claims to have saved taxpayers tens of billions of dollars have been debunked and debunked again, his “wall of receipts” riddled with errors and still full of errors when “corrected.”

Imagine how a private business would react if it hired a supposed efficiency expert who quickly fired crucial employees while making grandiose claims about the money he’s saving, but kept releasing progress reports that were full of ludicrous errors. You wouldn’t keep him on; you’d have security escort him out of the building and immediately change all the locks.

This is one of the few times we’ve seen Trump not throw a “friend” under the bus when the heat is on. Perhaps Trump finds taking revenge as tasty as his fast food and cannot let it go.

View on Threads

We’ll see how long Musk lasts once Social Security recipients see their monthly checks interrupted. And since he’s closing Social Security offices and chopping staff, they’ll find it difficult even to lodge a complaint. They can take to the streets in front of their local federal buildings, one supposes, if they haven’t been turned into condos.

Krugman adds:

I don’t know who first came up with this metaphor, but it seems to me that America is now trapped in a burning Tesla. If you don’t know this, the doors on Musk’s cars are designed to open electronically; if they have manual releases at all, they’re difficult to get at and use. As a result, there have been multiple instances of people burning alive inside Teslas when the engines catch fire.

Well, large parts of the U.S. economy and government appear to be on the verge of self-immolation. And given the combination of arrogance and ignorance shared by Musk and Trump, it’s hard to see how we get out.

Krugman chose as his “MUSICAL CODA” today a ballad by Sinead O’Conner. I’m going with something edgier.

* * * * *

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Coming to your neighborhood

Hundreds rallied in front of Asheville, North Carolina’s federal building on Tuesday to protest the Trump administration’s dismantling of government programs and agencies.

Hours later, they found out that the Trump administration has put the facility up for sale. They are not just closing agencies, they are selling off government assets (New York Times):

The Trump administration said on Tuesday that it could sell hundreds of federal properties around the country, including offices for the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.

Officials at the General Services Administration, an agency that manages the federal government’s real estate portfolio, originally said they had identified more than 440 properties that they could “dispose of” in an effort to ensure that “taxpayers no longer pay for empty and underutilized federal office space.”

By Tuesday evening, however, the list of buildings deemed “not core to government operations” had been trimmed to 320 properties, removing a number of high-profile buildings, many of them in Washington, D.C.

*TRUMP SEEKS TO PUT 443 FEDERAL PROPERTIES UP FOR SALE*PROPERTIES INCLUDE HHS AND HUD HEADQUARTERS IN DCListed properties here: www.gsa.gov/real-estate/…

— George Pearkes (@peark.es) 2025-03-04T19:06:00.170Z

Among the properties on the original list are Washington, D.C.’s Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice building and the J. Edgar Hoover Building, headquarters of the F.B.I. (And you thought Kash Patel meant to make Hoover into a museum.)

The administration had also identified the headquarters for the Department of Health and Human Services, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Energy Department, the Labor Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and even the General Services Administration. Large office buildings used by the Agriculture Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission were included.

Also up for sale is the Veach-Baley Federal Complex here in Asheville (at top). The facility houses the National Climatic Data Center (renamed the National Centers for Environmental Information in 2015). It is the nation’s repository for weather information gathered by NOAA (Wikipedia):

In addition to archiving data, NCEI develops products and services that make data readily available to scientists, government officials, the business community, academia, non-governmental organizations, and the general public.

If Elon Musk et al. have anything to say, all that “readily available,” taxpayer-funded weather information used by pilots, farmers, fisherman, local TV weathermen, wedding planners, etc. will be privatized and sold back to the people who paid for it already.

But not to worry, says an opinion column in The Hill. Selling off these properties to developers at auction to turn into apartments and condos is a win-win for America. It will help ease the housing crisis.

I kid you not.

Iconic government buildings in Chicago and elsewhere across the country will go on the auction block. Whenever the link goes live again, check your state for what else Trump is putting up for sale. Maybe you can get a bargain.

Here in the Cesspool of Sin, we knew we’d be a target.

* * * * *

Have you fought the coup today?
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I know most of you will not watch the SOTU tonight. I wouldn’t if I didn’t have to. But when you hear about what he said, keep in mind that he lies about everything.

Here is a partial list of his real accomplishments:

The stock market is crashing

Inflation is soaring

Started a trade war with Canada and Mexico, threatens more with …. everyone

Insulted our NATO partners and threatened worldwide democracy

Fired thousands of federal workers

Threw the government into chaos

Made the nation and the world far sicker

Sided with Russia over Ukraine

I don’t know how he will be able to say anything else but he is very adept at creating a fantasy world in which he is the hero. It will all be lies.

Pew Surveys put out this handy cheat sheet to remind yourself what the American people think all this before the speech:

Economy: 24% of U.S. adults say the economy is in excellent or good shape, while far more say it’s doing only fair (45%) or poor (31%). Looking ahead, partisans have very different predictions about what economic conditions will look like a year from now: 73% of Republicans say they’ll be better, and 64% of Democrats say they’ll be worse.

Groceries: More Americans expect the affordability of food and consumer goods to get worse (43%) rather than better (37%) over the course of 2025. Another 19% say it will stay about the same. Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to predict prices will improve.

Health care: Affordability of health care is one of Americans’ top concerns, with 67% of adults saying it’s a very big problem – up 10 percentage points since last spring. Again, more expect affordability to get worse rather than better in the coming year (45% vs. 20%).

Immigration: Majorities of U.S. adults support certain policy steps, including increasing deportations (59%) and sending more military forces to the southern border (58%). Fewer support cutting federal funds for cities and states if they don’t help federal deportation efforts (47%) or suspending asylum applications (44%). Republicans broadly approve of all these policy actions, while Democrats do not.

Birthright citizenship:More Americans disapprove than approve of Trump’s executive order redefining birthright citizenship in the U.S. (56% vs. 43%). Strong disapproval of the order is more widespread than strong approval (40% vs. 23%).

Ukraine: As of early February, 30% of Americans say the U.S. is giving too much support to Ukraine in its war with Russia, while 22% say it is not giving enough. Another 23% say the amount of support is about right. Republicans remain more likely than Democrats to say the U.S. is giving too much support (47% vs. 14%) and to say helping Ukraine hurts U.S. national security (40% vs. 21%).

NATO: Fewer than half of Republicans (47%) say the U.S. benefits a great deal or fair amount from NATO membership – the lowest share measured since we started asking this question in 2021. By comparison, 82% of Democrats say the U.S. benefits from being a NATO member.

Federal workers: 55% of Americans have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in federal career employees to act in the best interests of the public, but partisan divisions on this question are wide. And though Americans have long viewed a number of federal agencies favorably, a 56% majority have the overall sense that government is “almost always wasteful and inefficient.”

Policies affecting trans Americans: Compared with 2022, Americans have become more likely to favor certain restrictions for transgender people, such as requiring trans athletes to compete on teams that match their sex at birth (66%) and banning health care professionals from providing care related to gender transitions for minors (56%).

Elon Musk: As Musk continues to hold an influential role in the Trump administration, the overall balance of public opinion on him tilts more negative than positive (54% vs. 42%). Republicans mostly see Musk favorably (73%) while Democrats largely see him unfavorably (85%).

Climate: Climate change is among Democrats’ top concerns this year, with 67% saying it’s a very big problem. Just 13% of Republicans agree. When thinking about climate policy, Democrats prioritize protecting the environment for future generations, while Republicans place the most emphasis on keeping consumer costs low.

SOTU speeches rarely change anything. If anything his dumpster fire will just thrill his cultists. But it’s a good moment to bookmark and check back where we are in a month or two.

It’s hard to keep track of all the atrocities so I’ll just try to highlight a few of them each day. This one kind of broke my heart. He’s going to raze the forests, take down the trees that help prevent wildfires and kill the endangered species. For real:

Donald Trump has ordered that swathes of America’s forests be felled for timber, evading rules to protect endangered species while doing so and raising the prospect of chainsaws razing some of the most ecologically important trees in the US.

The president, in an executive order, has demanded an expansion in tree cutting across 280m acres (113m hectares) of national forests and other public lands, claiming that “heavy-handed federal policies” have made America reliant on foreign imports of timber. “It is vital that we reverse these policies and increase domestic timber production to protect our national and economic security,” the order adds.

Trump has instructed the US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to increase logging targets and for officials to circumvent the US’s Endangered Species Act by using unspecified emergency powers to ignore protections placed upon vulnerable creatures’ habitats.

This move is similar to recent instructions by Trump to use a rarely-used committee to push through fossil fuel projects even if they imperil at-risk species. Experts have said this overriding of the Endangered Species Act is probably illegal.

The order also stipulates logging projects can be sped up if they are for purported wildfire risk reduction, via “thinning” of vegetation that could ignite. Some scientists have said that aggressively felling forests, particularly established, fire-resistant trees, actually increases the risk of fast-moving fires.

One expert said, “Trump’s exact approach, logging in remote forests and telling communities that it will stop fires, is responsible for numerous towns being destroyed by fires in recent years, and hundreds of lives lost.”

Environmental groups decried Trump’s latest attempt to circumvent endangered species laws that shield about 400 species in national forests, including grizzly bears, spotted owls and wild salmon, and warned an increase in logging could pollute the water supply relied upon by millions of Americans.

“Trump’s order will unleash the chainsaws and bulldozers on our federal forests. Clearcutting these beautiful places will increase fire risk, drive species to extinction, pollute our rivers and streams, and destroy world-class recreation sites,” said Randi Spivak public lands policy director for the Center for Biological Diversity.

The logging interests are very excited, particularly since Trump is hitting Canada with lumber tariffs. They’ll get a free hand to completely destroy the national forests as a demonstration of America First.

Musk is firing tons of forest service workers as well. I suspect he sees this as his version of “raking the forest.”

Which may be sooner than they expect

It’s a personal bond between them and Trump and a shared mutual hatred for “Democrats” who they see as their most dangerous enemy. The last man in the piece, who walks off in anger because he doesn’t like hearing the facts the reporter is pointing to in her questions. He is emotional and uncomfortable and that means he is being confronted with an uncomfortable truth. (I’ve been there with people in my own life… it’s always very obvious when it happens.)

It’s clear they are all living in a MAGA cult information silo, of course. But the way things are going, the right wingers had better get some talking points together on war and recession and that’s not easy. He’ll try to blame Joe Biden for everything and he believes blame is all that’s necessary. But at some point, it has to click in with a few of his cultists that he promised to fix everything instantly and has taken radical actions that guarantee chaos not solutions. Maybe. They are very far gone.

The Trade War has begun

BREAKING: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau just dropped a bomb on Trump. He speaks directly to the American people.

He explains clearly the repercussions of Trump's Trade War on Canada, and exactly how it's going to cause tremendous pain to Americans.

He is clear that… pic.twitter.com/vGZyHZifWt

— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) March 4, 2025

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau denounced President Donald Trump for launching a trade war with his country, saying that he won’t back down from a tariff fight with the United States.

“Today, the United States launched a trade war against Canada. At the same time, they’re talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin — a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense,” Trudeau said in Ottawa.“Canadians are reasonable and we are polite, but we will not back down from a fight, not when our country and the well being of everyone in it is at stake.”

Trudeau pledged relief to Canadian workers caught in the trade war’s crosshairs, and told the American people that his quarrel was not with them. “We don’t want this. We want to work with you as a friend and ally, and we don’t want to see you hurt either, but your government has chosen to do this to you,” he said.

Trudeau reserved his bluntest remarks for the president.

“It’s not in my habit to agree with The Wall Street Journal, but Donald, they point out that even though you’re a very smart guy, this is a very dumb thing to do,” Trudeau said. “We two friends fighting is exactly what our opponents around the world want to see.”

It makes no sense but Trump is convinced that he can eliminate the national debt through tariffs and there’s no talking him out of it. He just can’t understand anything and his sycophants either believe his alleged magical prowess to change reality through will alone or are just too cowardly to cross him. So here we are.

The New York Times:

The New York Times has heard from nearly 100 companies that import from China about how the president’s tariffs were affecting them. They are a cross-section of striving enterprises stitched into the global economy: companies that make greeting cards, board games, outdoor footwear, hangers, digital picture frames, coffee equipment, toys, stained-glass windows and custom electronics.

Several themes emerged. American businesses, not Chinese suppliers, were shouldering the cost of tariffs. Many companies said they would have to raise prices to offset the expense if they had not already. Some spoke of a feeling of business paralysis: They were afraid to make plans amid the unpredictable stream of new tariffs, fearing the risk of moving production out of China since no country seemed immune.

Turning to domestic alternatives was usually not viable because they were more expensive, the quality was inferior and there were fewer options. Finally, completely reinventing their supply chain would be a huge undertaking for the companies, requiring time and expense they cannot easily spare.

[…]

For 18 years, Chris Miksovsky’s San Francisco-based company, Humangear, has designed its outdoor and travel products in the United States and produced them in Chinese factories.

But remembering the sting of tariffs during the first Trump presidency, Mr. Miksovsky, 56, wanted to see if domestic manufacturing made more sense now. He wanted to start simple with Humangear’s best-selling but easiest-to-make product: a plastic utensil with a fork on one end and a spoon on the other used for camping.

He emailed six companies, four of which never responded. The two that did express an interest asked a lot of questions about product specifications. After Mr. Miksovsky answered every inquiry, one company stopped answering his emails, and the other replied weeks later apologizing but did not provide a quote.

“It’s very fine to say we’re going to put these tariffs in place to bring jobs back to America,” he said. “That assumes that America has the capability to make your product, and, more important, it assumes that it has the interest in making that product.”

The stock market tanked very quickly this morning but rebounded. I don’t know why. Maybe they think Trump is a magical superhero too. But he is not. The laws of physics and economics have not been suspended. So everyone should take a deep breath. He’s doing it.

Lech Walesa, former hero of the right wing:

Your Excellency, Mr. President,

We watched the report of your conversation with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, with fear and distaste. We find it insulting that you expect Ukraine to show respect and gratitude for the material assistance provided by the United States in its fight against russia. Gratitude is owed to the heroic Ukrainian soldiers who shed their blood in defense of the values of the free world. They have been dying on the front lines for more than 11 years in the name of these values and the independence of their homeland, which was attacked by Putin’s russia.

We do not understand how the leader of a country that symbolizes the free world cannot recognize this.

Our alarm was also heightened by the atmosphere in the Oval Office during this conversation, which reminded us of the interrogations we endured at the hands of the Security Services and the debates in Communist courts. Prosecutors and judges, acting on behalf of the all-powerful communist political police, would explain to us that they held all the power while we held none. They demanded that we cease our activities, arguing that thousands of innocent people suffered because of us. They stripped us of our freedoms and civil rights because we refused to cooperate with the government or express gratitude for our oppression. We are shocked that President Volodymyr Zelensky was treated in the same manner.

The history of the 20th century shows that whenever the United States sought to distance itself from democratic values and its European allies, it ultimately became a threat to itself. President Woodrow Wilson understood this when he decided in 1917 that the United States must join World War I. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood this when, after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he resolved that the war to defend America must be fought not only in the Pacific but also in Europe, in alliance with the nations under attack by the Third Reich.

We remember that without President Ronald Reagan and America’s financial commitment, the collapse of the Soviet empire would not have been possible. President Reagan recognized that millions of enslaved people suffered in Soviet russia and the countries it had subjugated, including thousands of political prisoners who paid for their defense of democratic values with their freedom. His greatness lay, among other things, in his unwavering decision to call the USSR an “Empire of Evil” and to fight it decisively. We won, and today, the statue of President Ronald Reagan stands in Warsaw, facing the U.S. Embassy.

Mr. President, material aid—military and financial—can never be equated with the blood shed in the name of Ukraine’s independence and the freedom of Europe and the entire free world. Human life is priceless; its value cannot be measured in money. Gratitude is due to those who sacrifice their blood and their freedom. This is self-evident to us, the people of Solidarity, former political prisoners of the communist regime under Soviet russia.

We call on the United States to uphold the guarantees made alongside Great Britain in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which established a direct obligation to defend Ukraine’s territorial integrity in exchange for its relinquishment of nuclear weapons. These guarantees are unconditional—there is no mention of treating such assistance as an economic transaction.

Signed,

Lech Wałęsa, former political prisoner, President of Poland

I’m fairly sure Trump never knew anything about Walesa except that he was on Larry King in the 1980s. It wouldn’t have been of interest to him and he’s never read anything so he doesn’t care. But there are some right wingers left who do remember him and they have thrown their lot in with the Russia loving Putin. But then, Putin isn’t a commie, he’s an authoritarian oligarch and they apparently like them just fine.

I have no great love for H.R Master but he’s got Trump’s number — and Putin’s. Trump isn’t happy about it:

“H.R. MCMASTER IS A WEAK AND TOTALLY INEFFECTIVE LOSER!” Trump posted to his social media platform Truth Social late Sunday.

“We should spend less time worrying about Putin, and more time worrying about migrant rape gangs, drug lords, murderers, and people from mental institutions entering our Country—So that we don’t end up like Europe!” Trump wrote in a separate post.

In another post early Monday, Trump claimed that he was “the only president who gave none of Ukraine’s land to Putin’s Russia,” despite the fact that the deal cooked up by his administration thus far would fail to return Ukraine to its prewar borders.

He’s mad about a 60 Minutes interview with McMaster in which he said that Trump is being played by Putin. (Duh…)

“Vladimir Putin couldn’t be happier. Because what he sees is all of the pressure on Zelenskiy, all of the pressure on Ukraine, and no pressure on him.”

McMaster noted that Putin is a “master manipulator” with a deep understanding of how to work Trump to Russia’s advantage.

“He appeals to President Trump’s sense of aggrievement,” McMaster said. “And he’s been very successful at it because he’s a master manipulator and one of the best liars in the world.”

He may be the best liar in the world. But he isn’t the biggest. I think you know who that is.