32 thoughts on “News/Politics 4-5-25”

  1. There has been much planning for power by steel mills and much preparation to get metals needed for chips etc. The Dems have stood in the way for it all, which is why an area that was all Dem forever is now not. Over two decades of testing for environmental concerns and millions of dollars and nothing yet. That is from regulation and court battles, despite companies following the law.

    We live in a part of the country where power outages are a life and death issue. The same for electric cars or buses that lose power quickly in the cold. That is why ‘one size fits all’ does not work, necessarily. Very few are happy with the regulations from the Democrats who held all the power in the last few years.

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  5. I wrote gang but funny fone wrote gangster.

    This morning in a text to son, I wrote the words “He said,” referring to his dad, and the phone changed it to “Heavenly said.” I told son that dad has a new nickname, lol

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  7. Colorado wants to take guns away from responsible owners and leave them in the hands of criminals…that’s how it works!

    And now they will take your children away from you if you “misgender” said children. This state legislature is pure evil!

    Nj

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  9. #USELESSMEDIA

    https://x.com/WallStreetApes/status/1908377143094239649?t=P3C663Xxfyn3oFoN45xllw&s=19

    “CBS News 6 months ago: Pretended there was no illegal migrant gang activity in Aurora, Colorado

    CBS News Today: “This now shut down apartment complex was one of the most dangerous areas in Aurora, Colorado

    ”Where was this reporting during the election?

    “Dozens of people have been arrested and deemed or labeled as members of Tren De Aragua, an international criminal organization, a dangerous gang that was formed in Venezuela and has had criminal activities in countries throughout the region and here in the US.

    The crackdown that happened here seems to have significantly reduced crime in the area.””

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  11. Of course….

    https://x.com/MilaLovesJoe/status/1908267811706949869?t=gk_LEnuV5Sj6kaXFquUJIQ&s=19

    “This makes me physically ILL.

    This also why the left is losing it over Elon Musk auditing their grift.

    Aaron Heitke, the U.S. Border Chief with experience spanning five administrations, has unequivocally confirmed that the Biden-Harris administration directed him to suppress, hide, and alter data related to the border crisis.

    He claims he was instructed to intentionally reduce detention capacity across the country while simultaneously issuing new Social Security numbers to undocumented immigrants.

    According to Heitke, this enabled them to access full Social Security benefits and Medicaid, facilitated their voter registration, and ultimately PERMITTED them to CAST VOTES in U.S. ELECTIONS.

    And there it is.”

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  12. The Rasmussen Dow Jones graph is weird – the scale is 6,203 points per square. When it’s that type of specific number, you should be suspicious. The other issue is probably due to Twitter limitations and that’s short “x” axis — this exaggerates the ups and downs over time.

    When I googled Dow Jones Index, the graph that appeared had a scale of 10 000 points and a longer “x” axis. This resulted in a much flatter graph with very little dramatic changes from 2021 – 2024. The Biden era then looks stable.

    Post November the Dow Jones was on a steady increase as the business community had confidence in Trump. Those gains were completely wiped out in one day – the 3rd. Friday losses lowered the Index to about September 2024 values. Post-close trading has continued to lower the index and it is now at May 2024 values. Two days wiped out 10 months of gains — a huge loss of confidence.

    Actually — I checked again — the index is now at 38k which is 4k lower than reported by Rasmussen — so R is completely misleading and its not just the graph.

    hrw

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  13. Tychicus,

    Can you explain how the US has been the world’s piggy bank? I’ve heard that claim before and it still makes no sense to me.

    hrw

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  14. HRW,

    Because we are….

    https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/06/what-the-data-says-about-us-foreign-aid/

    “In fiscal 2023, the most recent fiscal year for which data is largely complete, the U.S. government disbursed $71.9 billion in foreign aid, according to ForeignAssistance.gov. That compares with nearly $74.0 billion spent in fiscal 2022. These figures (and others from ForeignAssistance.gov) do not include most arms sales or transfers of military equipment to foreign countries.

    The amount, recipients and uses of foreign aid shift from year to year, depending on changing circumstances (such as wars, disasters or disease outbreaks) and evolving policy priorities. For example, U.S. foreign aid spending was much lower, comparatively, in fiscal 2001: $24.6 billion in inflation-adjusted 2023 dollars. But by federal budgetary standards, annual aid spending in recent years hasn’t varied all that much. Between fiscal 2008 and fiscal 2023, annual aid spending ranged from $52.9 billion to $77.3 billion, adjusted for inflation.

    The U.S. government is the single-largest aid donor in the world, according to the United Nations, accounting for more than 40% of all humanitarian aid the UN tracked in 2024.”

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  15. Huh.

    https://x.com/TaraBull808/status/1908280086044041320?t=W3MG1YMKETAm7Y7KPdrkNw&s=19

    “BREAKING: Already Israel, India, the EU, Japan, Vietnam, and Cambodia all plan to drop tariffs if Trump agrees to do the same.

    Weird Trump’s plan is actually working as intended.”

    —-

    https://x.com/Barbara14130169/status/1906767194769543462?t=lUvPNcp_vKT3VOSwZWd8Xg&s=19

    “Apple, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, GE, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai, among others to shift manufacturing and expansion to the United States.”

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  19. DOGE’s next target.

    https://x.com/VigilantFox/status/1908369692881805500?t=ib4Ecy74jkbT5SDJ2Zg1lw&s=19

    “Dr. Oz drops bombshells on the massive waste, fraud, and abuse bleeding Medicare and Medicaid—exposing a system that’s losing billions while nobody’s watching the books.

    “Let me give you some numbers, and I’m going to keep you up tonight.

    ”What followed was a cascade of shocking revelations about how brokers, bureaucrats, and bad actors are exploiting two of America’s biggest healthcare programs—with ordinary taxpayers footing the bill.

    Oz laid it all out: brokers enrolling people without their knowledge, states using federal money to cover illegal immigrants, and patients being counted multiple times across different states.Then came the truth bombs:

    “Last year, we had 230,000 Americans who are on the Affordable Care Act, the Obamacare plans, who didn’t know it! They found out when the IRS agents called up and said: ‘You guys have this free program in your family, did you know you have it?’”

    “Brokers had given them these programs, made money off the U.S. Government—they had no idea it happened.”

    “The state of California has taken tens of billions of dollars from the federal government providing ‘free health insurance’ for illegal immigrants in California.”

    “We are going to get that money back!”

    “There are programs like this that we’re witnessing day in and day out, where Medicaid patients are enrolled in multiple states and the federal government doesn’t know about it.”

    “So we pay every state for the same person, but we’re not getting our money’s worth—but those people aren’t getting their health either.”

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  20. No wonder Dems hate DOGE.

    It exposes them yet again.

    https://x.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1908220062496133399?t=7CjXk3d1P-wQsCpCUPVNTg&s=19

    “Billionaire Democrat donor @antoniogracias, now working with @DOGE, says the Biden administration’s border policies handed human traffickers $13–15 billion a year to bring in future Democrat voters.

    “We gave $13 to $15 billion a year to human traffickers. That’s what this system did.”

    “We looked at the voter rolls in four states, and we found thousands of these people [non-citizens] on the voter rolls, and we found many of those people had voted. In one state in particular, well over a thousand voted. Yeah, I think this was a move to import voters.””

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  21. There are different ways to measure foreign aid (not to mention different ways to define it). The US is the largest single donor at 55$ billion. However, the EU as a whole exceeds that number. When measured by per capita, Norway donates the most at over $800 per person while the US is much lower at $165 (Canada = $170). When calulated in terms of percentage of national income; Luxembourg, Norway and Sweden donate 1% of their national income to foreign aid whereas the US is far lower at 0.22% of their national income (Canada = 0.27%)

    China has also entered the foreign aid game. They have donated $38 billion which comes out to $27 per person or 0.36% of the national income. That means China is actually donating more of their national income than the US. Most of this is related to their Silk Road or Belt Road Initiative – building third world infrastructure as part of trade deals. US foreign aid is concentrated in Ukraine, countries around Israel and DRC (rare minerals).

    I don’t see the world taking money out of the US piggy bank. In both China and the US’s case, strategic interests dictate most of their foreign aid. On the other hand, the Nordic countries are practising altruistic donations.

    hrw

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  22. The “tariffs” listed in Trump’s chart next to his “reciprocal” tariffs are not actually tariffs. Its the percentage arrived by a formula which is based on the trade deficit. You take the amount a country exports to the US and divide by imports from the US and come up with a number. In Bangladesh, the percentage came up to 75%. They don’t have a 75% tariff on the US — they are just too poor to buy American goods, but make really cheap textiles that they export. Similarly the EU tariffs are actually between 0 to 5% but according to Trump it’s far higher based on the deficit. When the EU says they are willing to talk tariffs; its the 0 to 5% figures (depending on the good) that they are willing to discuss not the numbers Trump is concocting. Again I’m not opposed to tariffs as a trade policy but lets use the real numbers

    hrw

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  25. Trade imbalances are not foreign countries raiding the US piggy bank. When I buy a $100 of groceries, my local supermarket did not raid my piggy bank, I freely purchased groceries. Similarly the US purchases items from another country — they freely pay dollars and receive goods in exchange – it’s a win-win. And in fact the US has an advantage because their currency is the reserve currency.

    In many cases, corporations import and export goods within their own company but simply transfer the goods across borders. When the auto manufactures transport cars and car parts back and forth across Ontario and Michigan, they own the factories on both sides of the border and are merely goods to a spot on the production process. Nobody’s piggy bank is being used not even the corporation.

    In other cases, you will have an American corporation order goods from their Chinese subsidiary paying workers a subsistence wage. The goods are “imported” and valued at what the American consumer is willing to pay. And that number is the deficit. For the corporation, the difference between Chinese costs and American payments is called profit and its moved to a nominal HQ of the corporation — say for example Ireland. No piggy banks were raided but the corporation hid their piggy bank from the US IRS. The only one being ripped of in this case was the US gov’t and the exploited Chinese worker.

    hrw

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  26. ~ Canaries in the Trump Tariff Mine – Market signals are warning the White House of trouble ahead.

    By (WSJ) Editorial Board

    No one knows how financial markets will respond Monday after two days of extraordinary declines. Normally you’d expect some rebound, even if it’s a dead-cat bounce, after such a huge selloff on Thursday and Friday. But there are some canaries in the tariff mine that are warning of economic trouble ahead.

    One canary is the biggest selloff in the junk bond market since 2020, the pandemic year. The premium that investors demand for holding high-risk corporate debt rose a full percentage point to 4.5% late last week after Mr. Trump’s tariff assault, according to the ICE BofA index.

    At a minimum this is a sign that investors are hedging their bets on the economy. At worst it is a signal of fear that the tariffs and their consequences could trigger defaults. …

    … A second canary is the flight from the U.S. dollar. …

    … A third canary is the shift across Wall Street on recession risks. …

    … The Wall Street consensus has been wrong before, and nothing is foreordained. Trade retaliation could be less than feared, and Mr. Trump could change course. But policy makers ignore market signals at their peril. ~

    • dj

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  29. Stock Futures Sink as Markets Prepare for Tumultuous Week

    Traders hoping for positive news on new U.S. tariffs were disappointed over the weekend, and investors fear more countries will retaliate.

    Last Updated: 

    April 6, 2025 at 9:07 PM EDT

    • dj

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