Day: May 29, 2025

Where’s Elmo?

There has been an eerie absence from the spotlight by Donny’s favorite smug a/hole, Musk, the guru of DOGE.

So the question is….where’s Elmo?

Elon Musk’s time as a special government employee has officially come to an end, a White House official tells NBC News. The billionaire, who had recently pledged to pay more attention to the actual companies he runs, started offboarding from his role in the Trump administration Wednesday—the day after he publicly split with President Trump over the president’s so-called “big, beautiful bill.” Special government employees are typically allowed to work up to 130 days in a calendar year, and Musk had been in his role with the Department of Government Efficiency for more than 114. The White House has not yet publicly commented on his departure.

Musk did address his exit on X, thanking Trump “for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending” and saying the “DOGE mission” would “only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government,” but the New York Times reports that Musk had gone from calling himself Trump’s “first buddy” to seeming “disillusioned” and “distanced” from the president. In addition to his complaint about the spending bill, which he claimed would make the national deficit worse, he’s also recently complained about a deal for an AI data center in the Middle East that went to a rival company. White House officials, however, insist Musk and Trump remain on good terms.

In an interview with the Washington Post on Tuesday, Musk complained about how hard he found it to get things done in Washington, DC, (DOGE famously has not saved the federal government anywhere near the promised trillions) and claimed the department became a “whipping boy,” getting blamed for anything that went wrong in the federal government.

Unfortunately he did not, as I had hoped, fall off the face of the world but instead I would imagine that he will retire to his city in Texas and count the billions because of his tenure with Donny has made him…..and probably sit and jerk-off over the contracts his firms will now be given and the even more billions he will get.

All in all his tenure in the Donny sphere has been very profitable and after all that is the main reason he pretended to serve this country.

One smug bastard down and about 500 more to go….let the work begin!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Bad News For Donny’s Tariffs

The news broke that a US court has peed all over Donny’s pet policy…..tariffs.

President Trump does not have the authority to impose broad tariffs on imports, a federal court ruled Wednesday, rejecting the argument that the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act gives him that power. The US Court of International Trade had been asked to issue an injunction in the case involving lawsuits trying to block the tariffs. Instead, the three-judge panel skipped directly to issuing a judgment, Axios reports. The emergency legislation, the judges ruled, does not authorize any of the “Worldwide, Retaliatory or Trafficking” orders, adding, “the challenged Tariff Orders will be vacated and their operation permanently enjoined.”

The unanimous decision applies to the 10% “Liberation Day” tariffs Trump slapped on all foreign products on April 2, as well as the higher levies on goods coming from several dozen nations. Ruling on two cases at once, the court ordered that the tariffs already collected also be vacated, per Politico. At least seven lawsuits challenging the tariffs have been filed. White House aides had said before the ruling that the decision would be appealed if it went against the administration, per the Washington Post. The case could well go to the Supreme Court, per the New York Times, but if the ruling stands, it could be the end of Trump’s trade war.

Tariffs usually need congressional approval, but Trump maintains he has the authority now because the US trade deficits are so high they constitute a national emergency, per the AP. The law does not say the president can use tariffs to protect the nation from economic threats, per the Times, but Trump invoked it anyway. One of the panel’s judges was appointed by Ronald Reagan, one by Barack Obama, and one by Trump.

But how will this ruling effect things?

  • Ruling: The Court of International Trade—a federal body made up of Reagan, Obama, and Trump appointees—decreed that Trump doesn’t have the legal authority to impose most of the sweeping tariffs he has enacted. Trump did so under his interpretation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, notes the Wall Street Journal, but the court found that he overreached and invalidated them.
  • Affected: This means most of the tariffs Trump imposed, or imposed and then lifted pending negotiations, are gone, though Axios notes some exceptions: those on autos, steel, and aluminum were not enacted under the 1970s law and stand.
  • Fallout: The ruling “blows a hole in global trade talks, already under way with more than a dozen nations,” per the Journal, and it “throws into question recent agreements with the UK and China.” The New York Times finds that the court essentially wiped out Trump’s leverage with US trading partners.
  • What now: The court gave the Trump administration 10 days to formally unwind the tariffs, but the White House plans to appeal. “The judicial coup is out of control,” tweeted Trump adviser Stephen Miller.
  • Markets: Dow futures were up 300 points Thursday morning, reports CNBC, and world stocks also rallied.

Good to see that there are still some judges that Donald the Orange does not own….and there is still a small amount of commonsense.

But like in the past he will probably disregard and judgments against him as he has done so many times in the past.

Is it possible that Congress will now jump to Donny’s aid on this issue?

Will the bully now go after this court in revenge?

Any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Canada May Join The US

Before idiots take a victory lap I am speaking of Donny’s new obsession, the Golden Dome defense system….Canada is considering coming in on the deal that Donny is pushing.

Donny has done almost everything to convince Canada to join the union…..and now he has used the rotten apple “Golden Dome” as an incentive hoping fearmongering will do the trick.

Canada’s participation in President Trump’s $175 billion Golden Dome missile defense project will cost the country $61 billion—or nothing, Trump announced Tuesday. As King Charles III told Canada’s Parliament that a “confident Canada” can “give themselves far more than any foreign power can ever take away,” Trump took to Truth Social to note Canada’s role in the project “will cost $61 Billion Dollars if they remain a separate, but unequal, Nation, but will cost ZERO DOLLARS if they become our cherished 51st State.” “They are considering the offer!” he added. In response, the office of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he’d been clear that Canada will remain “an independent, sovereign nation,” per CTV News.

This concept is nothing new…..Reagan was pushing for this but did not have the support he wanted…..

The program has grown from a relatively modest $3 billion a year, back when Ronald Reagan first started talking it up during the 1980s, to over $30 billion a year for “missile defense and defeat programs” today. Since the development of the first interceptors in 1962, the government has spent more than $531 billion on “multiple ineffective missile defense schemes,” according to Stephen Schwartz, a nuclear budget analyst. Over $453 billion of that was spent in failed efforts launched by Reagan in 1983 to fulfill his fantasy of a shield that could “protect us from ballistic missiles just as a roof protects a family from rain.”

All we have to show for the effort is 44 ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California that are so flawed that the Pentagon last year awarded Lockheed Martin an $18 billion contract to build a brand-new replacement system. While missile defenses against short-range rockets, like those Hamas fired into Israel, can be effective, no country has built a system that can reliably shoot down nuclear missiles that travel thousands of miles at many times the speed of sound.

…

Whether the systems works or not doesn’t matter for the contractors who get rich on contracts to design, develop, and deploy these weapons. That may be why Musk has partnered with two other companies owned by Trump supporters, software maker Palantir and drone builder Anduril, to help design and build the system. Musk’s company estimates that the initial design contracts alone could be worth between $6 billion and 10 billion, according to Reuters.

https://newrepublic.com/article/195608/trump-golden-dome-elon-musk-richer

All this ‘system’ will do for certain is make Musk richer as well as the defense contractors….. “raises concerns about whether defense contracts to build a Golden Dome are an effective way to protect Americans or are meant to enrich Mr. Musk and other elites.”

Another funnel for the defense industry to siphon cash out of this country and into the pockets of the Fat Cat CEOs and possibly Musk and Donny as well.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”