Analytics

Tuesday, March 3, 2026

Post #7587 M: Trump Iran War Address Cold Open; Larry Johnson Predicts Trump’s War on Iran and Exposes the Lies It’s Built On; Dumb BLEEP of the Week

 Quote of the Day

What is a weed? A plant 
whose virtues have not yet been discovered.
Ralph Waldo Emerson  

Trump Iran War Address Cold Open

Larry Johnson Predicts Trump’s War on Iran and Exposes the Lies It’s Built On

Dumb BLEEP of the Week

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Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Jeff Danziger via Politico

Musical Interlude: 1963 Top 100 Hits

The Monkey Time - Major Lance

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Monday, March 2, 2026

Post #7586 M: NYC has 1000’s of empty apartments. You'll never guess why; Trump's Speech Was Disborbing; McClanahan on The State of the Union that Transformed America

 Quote of the Day

People will try to rain on your parade because they have no parade of their own. - Jeffrey Gitomer

NYC has 1000’s of empty apartments.  You'll never guess why.

Trump's Speech Was Disborbing

McClanahan on The State of the Union that Transformed America

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Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Bill Bramhall via US News

Musical Interlude: 1963 Top 100 Hits

Days Of Wine And Roses - Henry Mancini

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Sunday, March 1, 2026

Post #7585 Social Media Digest

 Facebook

X/Twitter

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Post #7584 M: Trump Claims Everything is GREAT, MAGAland Gives Rave Reviews & Bombshell Epstein Report About Donny; McClanahan on Presidential Tariff Powers?; Reason Reacts to the State of the Union

 Quote of the Day

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, 
but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
George Bernard Shaw 

Trump Claims Everything is GREAT, MAGAland Gives Rave Reviews & Bombshell Epstein Report About Donny

McClanahan on Presidential Tariff Powers?

Reason Reacts to the State of the Union

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Rob Rogers via Politico

Musical Interlude: 1963 Top 100 Hits

The Orlons - South Street

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Saturday, February 28, 2026

Post #7583 J

 Endemic Report

We have the first update of the 4 mega stats in over a month. The latest regional trend includes a cluster og 6 states in the mid-Atlantic to Southeast US. 



The Sick Times:



The latest COVID-19 news items:

  • "COVID-19 infection predicts higher risk of kidney disease, study finds"
  • "Over 40% of health care workers had insomnia during, after COVID pandemic peak"
  • "Long-term brain effects of COVID-19 vs. flu: Study reveals key differences. Even a mild case of COVID-19 or the flu can impact the body long after the fever and cough fade, according to new Tulane University research that may help explain why some people struggle to feel fully recovered weeks or months later. Tulane researchers found that while both viruses can leave lasting lung damage, only SARS-CoV-2 infection caused persistent brain inflammation and small blood vessel injury, even after the virus was no longer detectable."
  • "COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness Against Hospitalization"
  • "Potential 'holy grail' nasal spray that may protect against COVID-19, flu and pneumonia aims for human trial"
  • "How Covid Quietly Rewires the Brain"

Other Notes

The blog received hundreds of page views on a single day this week, otherwise a fairly typical viewer pattern. I will not reach my target of 40 posts this month, but that's an artifact of February being a short month. I finally published my essay on Trump's tariffs, which took a long time to write, but I liked the way it came out, and I think it is one of my best efforts, both readable and detailed, with a good use of AI to support basic points. The overnight US/Israeli attack will likely be the focus of an upcoming March post. Twitter/X has somewhat higher numbers this past week, with followers up about 10 to near 220, but they fluctuate daily.

When I switched my cable service, I found my bundle included Great American Family. I think that's the network that hired Christmas hostess Candace Cameron Bure away from Hallmark, as Hallmark had started featuring non-traditional rom-coms.. I have gay relatives whom I love, but I personally prefer more traditional content. I still have Hallmark as one of my plan's few off-bundle channel choices. To be honest, I haven't watched many new rom-coms lately from either channel, but I notice both channels do play a few Christmas titles I think on Fridays or so, and recently saw 3 I've traditionally seen on Hallmark until recently, one of them a Candace Bure "classic" (on the takeover of a family ski resort). I don't know if the films are jointly or exclusively licensed. I know I saw the ski movie during Hallmark's recent countdown. My biggest gripe is most of the Hallmark content I like isn't individually licensed. I also don't like having to pay for multiple licenses of the same movie or song. For instance, I have boxes of CDs and LPs in storage. In another case, I lost a DVD copy of "White Christmas" in an old desktop drive. 

I recently ranted about this on X. The Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame took forever to select Foreigner and Pat Benatar. They once again left Boston off the list (while nominating pop acts like Carey, Sade, and Shakira); I'm still pissed the Grammys chose Starland Vocal Band over Boston for best new artist. Phil Collins is long overdue this year's nomination; he ruled the 80s  I'm with Adam Reader, Professor of Rock, on this one along with Adam's advocacy of Karen Carpenter. We just lost Neil Sedaka, and Karen's cover of his hit "Solitaire" is beyond awesome. We also lost songwriter  Billy Steinberg whose song "I Drove All Night" was written for rock icon Roy Orbison. I just used my Amazon digital credits to download his Grammy-earning performance. Oh my God, that moment when he soars to his high register in the chorus. He's like Brad Delp and Steve Perry; I'm a decent singer, and I can't do that.

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Post #7582 M: Trump said WHAT about tariffs?; The Price of Trump’s Tariffs: What the Data Reveals; Jimmy Kimmel Reacts to Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address 2026

 Quote of the Day

A successful man is one 
who can lay a firm foundation with 
the bricks others have thrown at him.
David Brinkley

Trump said WHAT about tariffs?

The Price of Trump’s Tariffs: What the Data Reveals

Jimmy Kimmel Reacts to Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address 2026

 Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Bill Bramhall via US News 

Musical Interlude: 1963 Top 100 Hits

 Be My Baby - Ronettes 

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Friday, February 27, 2026

Post #7581 Rant of the Day: Trump's Un-Presidential Meltdown on the SCOTUS Tariff Decision

 Free trade is an underlying Constitutional construct of commerce among American states: via Google AI:

Now, the Constitution, until the 16th amendment, did not allow direct taxes like income; it relied on low, non-protectionist tariffs and excise taxes to finance the general government:


Tariffs had been contentious since Hamilton wanted to protect emerging industries from overseas competition.
As Hamiltonians discriminated against foreign goods, trading partners targeted American exports, especially those from the South. This exacerbated  economic regional differences as Southerners found their products paying the price of industrial protection while having to pay the higher prices of a less competitive marketplace. It was a huge issue during the Jackson Administration, also resurfacing during the early Civil War; if you go to Lincoln's first inaugural address, he was willing to negotiate slavery nut not the loss of tariff revenue; he could see lower-tariff Southern ports as a workaround to Union ports.

The issue of protectionist tariffs was mostly pursued by the Whigs, then the Republicans in the 19th century through the Depression:

The end of the GOP embrace of protective tariffs (until Trump) was the disastrous Smoot-Hawley tariffs under Hoover, which exacerbated the Great Depression.

FDR stepped away from Hoover's global trade war with Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934 which encouraged POTUS to negotiate mutually beneficial lower tariff rates and other protectionist trade barriers:


The RTAA was renewed 11 times under bipartisan leadership, transitioning to compatible international agreements like GATT under JFK/LBJ and WTO under Clinton. The basic exception was Nixon's protectionism: 
So, clearly Trump's economic nationalism is the closest parallel to Nixon's protectionism. Nevertheless, you saw some managed trade violations with other Presidents, like Carter on footware, Reagan on Japanese car import quotas, and George W. Bush on steel tariffs. But for the most part. you saw the Presidents using Congressional delegated authority to rapidly expand mutually favorable trading terms with additional partners. There has been some pushback from leftists on labor protectionist grounds, labor rates in partner nations, and/or inadequate environmental policies. Obama attempted to negotiate TPP (Pacific trade) and TTIP (Europe), but Trump killed these initiatives.
 
I found it useful to look at tariffs as a percentage of federal revenue to analyze Trump's disastrous protectionist policies:

It's challenging to know where to begin with Trump's fixation on trade. It seems to presume the State  should impose some finetuned control over trade policy to maximize goods trade surpluses, presumably maximizing economic/job growth. He is obsessed with a persistent trade deficit since 1975 and argues that it is the result of a conspiracy of wily international traders taking advantage of incompetent US trade representatives. This seems to presuppose a belief in the superiority of a centrally planned economy, not the "invisible hand" od Adam Smith, a contemporary of our Founders and our own free market of American states:


The result of a trade pact is not for unilateral advantage; it tries to ensure a more competitive market for both countries with lower trade barriers. like lower tariffs, relaxed quotas, etc. The big concern seems to be that American goods may lose market share to the new import alternatives. In part, this may reflect comparative advantages. For example, a warmer climate may yield higher produce supplies. 

I have repeatedly debunked Trump's assertions on trade, pointing out that we had some of the strongest economic and job growth in the 80s and 90s, vs below-trend results under Trump. Trump ignores that over half of imports are used by American businesses. Trump's focus on steel and aluminum not only violated WTO principles like Bush's own steel tariffs, but it also harmed American businesses using steel or aluminum in their own products, with net layoffs and lower sales from relevant additional costs making products less globally competitive.

There's just so much rubbish Trump routinely claims about tariffs, it's hard to keep track and debunk it all: he overestimates tariff collections and insists foreign countries underwtite tariff costs. (The idea seems to be that foreign producers cut prices to offset tariffs.) Fed research shows over 90% of tariffs are passed on to Americans, and other research shows the cost American households $1000 last year.


The size, scope, and nature of Trump's tariff wars are unprecedented in American history. Not one has been authorized by Congress, the only Constitutional authority to tax. Trump has based his tariff "authority" on unprecedented claims on two laws:   the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. 
.
 Most of Trump's manic-depressive tariff behavior since the start of his second has been based on the former law invoked by phony pretext of a "national emergency" (not only is a trade deficit not an emergency, the goods deficit actually expanded under Trump last year). Trump's tariff increases also applied to nations with which the US has a surplus, and have occurred for non-trading behavior (e.g., Brazil's prosecution of a former president, drug allegations, immigration policies, etc.) Trump's decisions have exacerbated economic uncertainty and have been countered  by actions against American exports, like canceled soybean sales.

I'm not going to explain the legal nuances of LEARNING RESOURCES, INC., ET AL. v. TRUMP,
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, ET AL. Trump's supposed tariff authority under IEEPA was struck down 6-3, including conservative justices Roberts, Gorsuch, and Barrett. Among other things, they pointed out said act didn't even reference tariffs. There is also a constitutional question about whether a taxing authority can be delegated (nope).

Trump responded as expected with a Trumper tantrum. personally attacking the majority. I've also pointed out his global tax pivot on the 1974 trade act is not likely to survive judicial scrutiny because he wrongly conflates the balance of payments with the trade deficit.

Trump's misconduct is unworthy of the Presidency.




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