T is for Tuesday, and Trump
There’s always so much to work from… the man does make our job so much easier. Where to start?
How about bird flu? H5N1 is the one we are looking at now. The only realistic way to deal with it is slaughtering the birds – not the infected ones only, but the entire farm/flock/whatever. Most countries we export to will not allow the entry of vaccinated birds, so we can’t just vaccinate ’em. And in this day of mega-poultry operations, we’re not talking a few hundred family owned birds. Try more like 148,000,000 so far. Lot of USDA cluckers there, for you C.W. McCall fans.
Last week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “The Biden administration and the Department of Agriculture directed the mass killing of more than 100 million chickens, which has led to a lack of chicken supply in this country, therefore lack of egg supply, which is leading to a shortage.”
But per Jodi Rollins, a professor at Emory:
“But it is, and always has been a policy across administrations, with the USDA, that this is how they handle infections like this among poultry. And as we’ve seen bird flu move [across] species, it becomes even more important to try to contain that infection in the flocks that it’s in, so that we don’t continue to see spread.” CBS News
SOP to kill off the birds…and was in the previous Trump administration. Trying to hang on your predecessors what your prior administration did too? Reminds me of the Clintons blaming Bush for everything, and who wants to be compared to them?
And as long as consumers are feeling the pain, how about them tariffs? 25% on Canadian and Mexican imports, 10% on Chinese. (Thought China was our big worry?) Seems to have had a salutary effect on Mexico as of Monday, but Canada is jumping right on the retaliatory tariff bandwagon.
“If prices go up, it’s because of other people’s reactions to America’s laws,” his homeland secretary, Kristi Noem, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Pretty simple here – if Canadian companies are forced to incur a 25% tariff, they up their prices to reflect increased costs, right? Same as any company would do. (If you do know of a company which would just grin and suck it up, do let me know.)
“WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!),” Trump said in a social media post. “BUT WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AND IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID.”
Translated: It’s for your own good.
Pull the other one.
Luckily it’s only 10% on oil and energy imports – since 60% of the crude, and 25% of our oil consumed daily comes from Canada. Remember Trump’s last administration when gas reached below $2.00/gallon? I wouldn’t hold your breath looking for that again any time soon.
Canada does have a $75,000,000,000 trade surplus with the US, prompting:
Trump contended that without that surplus, “Canada ceases to exist as a viable Country. Harsh but true! Therefore, Canada should become our Cherished 51st State.AP
One state, across 6 times zones, with as many leftist voters as California, many of them beholden mostly to France, not England or the US, probably at least 50 electoral votes. Sounds like a GREAT plan. Bring that baby in!
Do we mention the Gulf of America? About 3540 miles of shoreline, of which about 1631 are US. Both numbers are a lot higher if you count coves, inlets, etc. but the proportions are about right. It has been called the Gulf of Mexico since about 1550, The Gulf of America about two weeks since the Inauguration. Seriously?
How about DEI practices he blames for the tragic crash last week?
While reading through a Fox News article on live television, Trump listed conditions that he implied would disqualify people from being air traffic controllers: “hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability, and dwarfism.” Jalopnik
Moreover, the FAA under Trump in 2019 launched a program to hire controllers using the very criteria he decried at his news conference.
“FAA Provides Aviation Careers to People with Disabilities,” the agency announced on April 11, 2019. The pilot program, the announcement said, would “identify specific opportunities for people with targeted disabilities, empower them and facilitate their entry into a more diverse and inclusive workforce.” Washington Post
The program sets quotas and according to many, one of the factors in the ATC shortage is that so many slots were set aside for DEI hires that many less challenged folks couldn’t get in.
But Trump, in his first term, left the policy in place, leading to a class-action lawsuit filed in 2019 by Mountain States Legal Foundation. The case was due to go to trial this year.Washington Post
So his administration not only left the policy in place, in 2019 they DEFEND it.
Been a long column…the next one is just tacky. After the aforementioned crash, Trump was asked whether he would visit the crash site (as I recall, probably 15 minutes from the White House?)
When asked about his plans to visit the crash site, he replied: “I have a plan to visit, not the site. Because you tell me, what’s the site? The water? You want me to go swimming?” The Independent
Just stupid, insensitive, and more stupid.
Category: 2024 Election, Trump!
One small update David, apparently Canukistan has now decided to play ball, and tariffs are on hold there as well.
“SOP to kill off the birds…and was in the previous Trump administration. Trying to hang on your predecessors what your prior administration did too? “
No, that wasn’t an attempt to “hang” anything on Biden, that was explaining to the idiot reporter that Trump can’t magically make egg prices go down three weeks after taking office. She was just pointing out the cause of the price increases, that it occurred before Trump took office and that the implication that prices should have come down by now is ridiculous.
Tariffs:
If you haven’t figured out by now that this is a bargaining tactic by Trump and that it would result in concessions from the involved countries, perhaps you aren’t the right person to be opining on the subject. You should pay more attention.
DEI:
He said DEI COULD be a contributor to the crash. Granted, he wasn’t very clear initially, but in response to follow up questions from reporters he made that clear.
And he’s 100% correct. Both the FAA and the military have placed DEI initiatives over and above quality in hiring decisions. An article on this very site last summer lamented the FAA advertising that they would be prioritizing disabled persons for hiring into even critical positions. There is currently a lawsuit against the FAA for refusing to hire qualified white men for positions because of their race…while staffing levels at the Reagan tower were such that a single controller was performing the functions normally overseen by two.
Meanwhile both pilots of the helicopter that obviously bares the majority of the responsibility for this tragedy were women. That is not to say they weren’t qualified or competent, but in light of the military’s determination to increase the numbers of “underrepresented” people in high visibility roles like Pilots does tend to raise some eyebrows.
…continued
Part 2
In light of those unassailable facts, I’d say believing that DEI may well have played a role in this tragedy is perfectly logical and it’s refreshing to have a leader speak clearly and plainly about it rather than deflect and dither.
The fact that the FAA policy went into effect during his first term…while he was constantly battling disloyalty and outright defiance within the ranks of his own executive agencies…including the DOJ that was actively seeking to undermine his presidency, while defending woke initiatives in contravention to Trump’s stated policies…is flatly irrelevant.
And finally:
It’s “Tacky” to snap back at a “gotcha” question by a hostile reporter? Personally, I’m happy to see our elected leaders smack down those smug self-righteous purveyors of fake news and misinformation from time to time. It’s good to have a leader with a little backbone, even if it does make soy-boys and Karens cry about how “tactless” and “mean” he is.
I’m not a Trump sycophant but your apparent reflexive opposition to everything he does and says is just as bad as reflexively supporting everything he does and says.
Slight correction:
“Trump can’t magically make egg prices go down
threetwo weeks after taking office.”Seems longer than that. Trump’s had more real, measurable accomplishments in two weeks that Biden did in four years.
Just the fact he’s available for comment — and comments openly and plainly, is more than Biden did in 4 years. Same for JD Vance when compared to the Queen of Skin Floutists.
Well, we did beat Medicare so there was that.
I realize that sailors can sometimes think a lamp post is a woman after they’re at sea a while, but despite calling this an ‘unassailable fact’, only one of the pilots was a woman.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/black-hawk-helicopter-american-airlines-pilot-dc-plane-crash-b2690976.html
We haven’t had a different big business man in office since I don’t know when. Those that have never worked in big business making large deals are very confused by what Trump is doing. Just read his book and it will all become crystal clear.
Then there are those who know what he is doing but frame it differently. They don’t realize but they are actually helping.
This is going to get nasty.
The biggest part of an egg McMuffin is the egg.
Then you have that slab of “Canadian” bacon topped with a
slice of “American” cheese.
Not sure why Trump should take responsibility for chickens killed under Biden but it’s your column. I don’t think they were trying to shift blame either. The media had suddenly discovered that things like eggs cost more but for some reason had no idea why. So it was explained to them in simple English.
From the 1870s to the 19teens, our government was almost entirely financed via tariffs. There were committees to find ways to spend the excess.
Then we passed that idiot income tax “just on the super wealthy”, and created permanent inflation via the “Fed”.
We built a world spanning -battleship- fleet, without income tax or Fed.
Trump has a good point that taxing foreigners beats taxing Americans. It’s why Florida taxes tourists instead of income. Yup, hotels and theme parks cost lots more there. I very much put to good use 20 years of untaxed income.
Yes, the adjustment period can be rough. Since we are the ones with the trade imbalanced against us, we do better when folks switch to US sources.
That is why so many other places fold so quickly. If we -sustain- tariffs, and get accustomed to them, we might not -want- to switch back.
Trump is weilding tariffs like a sledgehammer to break up “how it has always been” (lately).
Imagine 40 years of zero income tax. It is replaced by tariffs on foreign goods, which you can avoid. Now we just need sound dollars to make borrowing unpleasant again.
By 1900 the US produced 60% of the steel in the world in addition to large market shares in just about everything.
In 1913 Democrats got rid of tariffs and replaced it with… Your answer must be in the form of a question…