Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

We're fucked if it gets to that point.

Seems like we are going to get to that point very, very quickly, because the administration playbook right now is all about pushing back against any constraints on what they want to do.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Seems like we are going to get to that point very, very quickly, because the administration playbook right now is all about pushing back against any constraints on what they want to do.

I mean, today, they said "oops, our bad, we sent an innocent guy to the fucking gulag in El Salvador and we aren't going to do squat to rectify this".

This is the sort of shit they used to scare us about when they told us how horrible the communists in the USSR were when we were kids.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

These tariffs are such a colossal, unforced, self-inflicted debacle, worse than the Gulf War or Brexit.

Barbara Tuchman wrote a book years ago called The March Of Folly, about governments that pursued mistakes that were widely understood at the time to be mistakes, like Britain's loss of the American colonies and the US in Vietnam. I think I need to re-read it.

Democrats ought to be branding this stuff with the word Republican, because Trump is not going to be running in two or four years, and congressional Republicans are too scared and feckless to stand up for what they know they ought to be doing. Congress gave the executive this tariff power, and Congress could take it away.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

These tariffs are such a colossal, unforced, self-inflicted debacle, worse than the Gulf War or Brexit.

Barbara Tuchman wrote a book years ago called The March Of Folly, about governments that pursued mistakes that were widely understood at the time to be mistakes, like Britain's loss of the American colonies and the US in Vietnam. I think I need to re-read it.

Democrats ought to be branding this stuff with the word Republican, because Trump is not going to be running in two or four years, and congressional Republicans are too scared and feckless to stand up for what they know they ought to be doing. Congress gave the executive this tariff power, and Congress could take it away.

There are like three people in the world who thinks these tariffs are a good idea, but every GOP elected official fears one of them.

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

These tariffs are such a colossal, unforced, self-inflicted debacle, worse than the Gulf War or Brexit.

Barbara Tuchman wrote a book years ago called The March Of Folly, about governments that pursued mistakes that were widely understood at the time to be mistakes, like Britain's loss of the American colonies and the US in Vietnam. I think I need to re-read it.

Democrats ought to be branding this stuff with the word Republican, because Trump is not going to be running in two or four years, and congressional Republicans are too scared and feckless to stand up for what they know they ought to be doing. Congress gave the executive this tariff power, and Congress could take it away.

In other news Miley Cyrus does a decent version of Zombie by the Cranberries. . https://youtu.be/l81u-oSIAp4?si=ID_GfAD0N4r6klVZ

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

These tariffs are such a colossal, unforced, self-inflicted debacle, worse than the Gulf War or Brexit.

Barbara Tuchman wrote a book years ago called The March Of Folly, about governments that pursued mistakes that were widely understood at the time to be mistakes, like Britain's loss of the American colonies and the US in Vietnam. I think I need to re-read it.

Democrats ought to be branding this stuff with the word Republican, because Trump is not going to be running in two or four years, and congressional Republicans are too scared and feckless to stand up for what they know they ought to be doing. Congress gave the executive this tariff power, and Congress could take it away.

I can't think of a satisfying explanation for why he imposed these tariffs. The pundits who argue they're part of a grand scheme to lower federal debt service and tamp inflation seem like after the fact Rube Goldberg schematics.

The best explanation I have heard was from a DC reporter who pointed me to an open letter Trump published in a paper back in the 80s touting the need to impose reciprocal tariffs. It seems he's just had this idea in his head for four decades, and now that he has nothing to lose, he's testing it.

So we're all lab rats in a giant experiment hatched way back when everyone was concerned about Japan taking us over economically.

Maybe shoulder pads, Vaurnet sunglasses with the cloth attachments on the sides, Judd Nelson, and full bushes will come back into vogue too.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I can't think of a satisfying explanation for why he imposed these tariffs. The pundits who argue they're part of a grand scheme to lower federal debt service and tamp inflation seem like after the fact Rube Goldberg schematics.

The best explanation I have heard was from a DC reporter who pointed me to an open letter Trump published in a paper back in the 80s touting the need to impose reciprocal tariffs. It seems he's just had this idea in his head for four decades, and now that he has nothing to lose, he's testing it.

So we're all lab rats in a giant experiment hatched way back when everyone was concerned about Japan taking us over economically.

Maybe shoulder pads, Vaurnet sunglasses with the cloth attachments on the sides, Judd Nelson, and full bushes will come back into vogue too.

I do not understand why this is a surprise to so many people. We have been saying this about him for a decade.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by Adder

I do not understand why this is a surprise to so many people. We have been saying this about him for a decade.

He is mentally ill. Something is wrong with his medulla oblongata.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

He is mentally ill. Something is wrong with his medulla oblongata.

The "groceries is an old-fashioned word" thing is telling to me. He's just a series of catch phrases with zero substance behind them.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

He is mentally ill. Something is wrong with his medulla oblongata.

So your point is that his behavior is normal given his abnormalities?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Adder

I do not understand why this is a surprise to so many people. We have been saying this about him for a decade.

People don't believe things they don't want to believe.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

People don't believe things they don't want to believe.

Necessarily, this also means people believe what they want to believe. On both points, this is well done: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/o...g-tariffs.html

You might think a large swath of the world has critical thinking skills. If you're smart enough to acquire a graduate degree, you're exposed to people with them most of the time. But even among the "smart," one must notice, this skill is becoming less ubiquitous. It's been declining for years, for a number of reasons.

Imagine the deficit among the hoi polloi. It's horrifying.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

I do not understand why this is a surprise to so many people. We have been saying this about him for a decade.

If you believe the view that he is transactional and self-interested, the tariffs make no sense. They actually harm his own businesses and piss off the donor class.

The consensus on him for most of those ten years has been that he is self-interested and driven by desire for personal wealth.

It appears that was wrong, or he has changed. It appears now that he really thinks one can materially revive manufacturing here. This may be senility.

Trump has an ideological core of a sort. It seems to be a mix of McKinley, Hoover, and Teddy Roosevelt. It's Trump's Early 1900s, and we're just living in it.