Trump Has No Policy Process, Just Wormtongue and Palace Intrigue
The last paragraph of this NYT story describing absolutely insane plans for the State Department -“eliminating almost all of its Africa operations,” “cutting offices … that address climate change[,] refugee issues, … democracy[,] and human rights concerns,” mandating use of AI for “‘policy development and review’ and ‘operational planning’,” and replacing the Foreign Service exam with loyalty oaths — describes that the Executive Order laying out those plans is not the only proposed plan out there.
It links this story, published by NYT five days earlier, describing more modest plans: closing six embassies in Africa, not the entire continent.
The Trump administration is considering plans to close 10 embassies and 17 consulates and reduce or consolidate the staff of several other foreign missions, according to an internal State Department memo viewed by The New York Times.
The closures and other reductions outlined in the document, which is undated, would pare back the American presence on nearly every continent. They represent an expansion of plans the Trump administration was working on earlier this year for closing a dozen foreign missions and laying off local staff who work in those locations.
The cuts are in keeping with President Trump’s plans to reduce federal spending across the government, as well as a proposal that State Department leaders have been considering to cut nearly 50 percent of the department’s spending.
But the new proposed reductions have raised fresh concerns that the United States will be ceding vital diplomatic space to China, including in areas of the world where Washington has a greater presence than Beijing, compromising American national security, including intelligence gathering.
The competing plans — one a memo, the other an Executive Order that would be signed by Trump and would therefore oblige memo-writers to defer to Trump’s order — comes in the wake of the ouster of Pete Marocco, the Jan6er who effectuated the destruction of USAID, from the State Department.
There are several versions of Marocco’s ouster and his fate, but this Politico story describes that Marco Rubio fired him, in part because of differing opinions about how to destroy USAID (which has long since been accomplished, but during which, Rubio repeatedly made claims about GOP-supported programs like PEPFAR that turned out to be false).
Peter Marocco, the Trump administration official in charge of dismantling USAID, left a meeting at the White House last week to return to his office at the State Department. But when he arrived, Marocco could not enter the building: security told him he was no longer an employee there, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Word of Marocco’s firing quickly tore through the Republican Party and MAGA ecosystem, startling President Donald Trump’s loyalists who viewed the aide as part of an elite cohort of administration true believers. Loud voices on the right piled on Secretary of State Marco Rubio, accusing him of undermining their disruptive agenda.
Yet Marocco’s abrupt termination, which has not been fully reported until now, was not an impulsive dismissal or a case of Rubio going rogue. This report was based on conversations with five people, including administration officials and allies, all of whom were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters. Four of the people said Rubio fired Marocco. They gave varying explanations: one administration official said Rubio and others wanted Marocco out due to what they saw as his bulldozer operating style and failure to work effectively with colleagues; others pointed to substantive disagreements between Rubio and Marocco over how to dismantle USAID. Meanwhile, Marocco allies viewed Rubio and his team as insular, controlling and obstructionist to the DOGE agenda ordered by the president.
One White House official said Rubio went to a senior White House aide for clearance to remove Marocco after tensions reached a boiling point last week. They described Marocco’s firing as “the first MAGA world killing from inside the White House.”
It also describes the backlash targeting Rubio that has resulted.
In the days since his ouster, Marocco’s MAGA allies have come to his defense and raised new suspicions of Rubio, including questions about why he would want to protect USAID and whether he’s loyal to the president.
[snip]
“He’s really not a MAGA guy, he’s a neocon,” a Trump ally said of Rubio, adding that this move “is gonna bite him.”
This is the third instance of an ugly cabinet-level dispute in the Trump Administration in recent weeks.
NYT’s account of Gary Shapley’s installment to head the IRS, without Scott Bessent’s involvement, followed by his removal at the hands of Bessent, incorporates several pieces of intrigue. First, there’s Shapley’s installment by Musk and then Bessent’s reversal of Musk’s plot.
Mr. Bessent had complained to Mr. Trump this week that Mr. Musk had done an end run around him to get Mr. Shapley installed as the interim head of the I.R.S., even though the tax collection agency reports to Mr. Bessent, the people familiar with the situation said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
The clash was the latest instance of Mr. Musk’s influence in the Trump administration that has alarmed top officials. It was also the latest upheaval at the tax agency, with much of its staff pushed out or quitting. Mr. Trump earlier this week called for the I.R.S. to revoke Harvard University’s tax-exempt status after the school refused to impose sweeping changes demanded by the administration.
An I.R.S. spokeswoman declined to comment on the leadership changes.
Mr. Shapley, a longtime I.R.S. agent, gained fame among conservatives after he claimed that the Justice Department had slow-walked its investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes.
Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency pushed Mr. Shapley’s appointment through White House channels, but Mr. Bessent was not consulted or asked for his blessing, according to those with knowledge of the dynamic. Mr. Bessent then got Mr. Trump’s approval to unwind the decision within days, they said. Mr. Shapley had been working from the I.R.S. commissioner’s office as late as Friday morning.
Then, there’s Musk’s magnification of Laura Loomer’s attack on Bessent in response.
The feud between Mr. Musk and Mr. Bessent went public late Thursday night, when Mr. Musk amplified a social media post from the far-right researcher Laura Loomer accusing Mr. Bessent of colluding with a “Trump hater.”
“Troubling,” Mr. Musk wrote about Mr. Bessent’s meeting John Hope Bryant, the chief executive of the nonprofit Operation HOPE. Mr. Bryant is working on a financial literacy effort with Treasury officials.
Ms. Loomer had called that meeting a “vetting failure.”
Finally, there’s an oblique comment about DOGE boy Gavin Kliger’s removal on the same day as Shapley, one that WaPo describes in more detail: Kliger was shut out of IRS systems just as he was about to start a purge of IRS employees in the middle of tax season.
Early Friday morning, the IRS rescinded building and systems access for DOGE official Gavin Kliger, according to the people familiar with the situation. The Post could not immediately confirm the reason for the revocation.
Kliger was managing the massive layoffs at the agency that could cut the tax agency’s headcount by 25 percent. More layoff notices had been planned for Friday afternoon, the people said, but those notifications have been paused.
As laid out in declarations from USAID workers, Kliger left his digital fingerprints all over Marocco’s dismantling of USAID.
Left unsaid is whether Musk installed Shapley so as to empower Kliger to destroy the IRS just as it sets to processing this year’s tax receipts.
Thus far, we have correlation, without any insight into causation.
The far right targeting of Bessent is of particular concern, given the evidence he’s holding together the US (and with it, the global) economy with his own shoestrings. WSJ reported this week that he and Howard Lutnick had to sneak into the Oval Office to override Peter Navarro’s disastrous tariff plans.
On April 9, financial markets were going haywire. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick wanted President Trump to put a pause on his aggressive global tariff plan. But there was a big obstacle: Peter Navarro, Trump’s tariff-loving trade adviser, who was constantly hovering around the Oval Office.
Navarro isn’t one to back down during policy debates and had stridently urged Trump to keep tariffs in place, even as corporate chieftains and other advisers urged him to relent. And Navarro had been regularly around the Oval Office since Trump’s “Liberation Day” event.
So that morning, when Navarro was scheduled to meet with economic adviser Kevin Hassett in a different part of the White House, Bessent and Lutnick made their move, according to multiple people familiar with the intervention.
They rushed to the Oval Office to see Trump and propose a pause on some of the tariffs—without Navarro there to argue or push back. They knew they had a tight window. The meeting with Bessent and Lutnick wasn’t on Trump’s schedule.
The two men convinced Trump of the strategy to pause some of the tariffs and to announce it immediately to calm the markets. They stayed until Trump tapped out a Truth Social post, which surprised Navarro, according to one of the people familiar with the episode. Bessent and press secretary Karoline Leavitt almost immediately went to the cameras outside the White House to make a public announcement.
And multiple outlets have described Bessent’s thus far successful efforts to prevent Trump from firing Jerome Powell.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has repeatedly cautioned White House officials that any attempt to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell would risk destabilizing financial markets, according to two people close to the White House granted anonymity to share details of private discussions.
Bessent’s private message reinforces what President Donald Trump already knows but comes as the president’s anger with the Fed chair is growing because Powell hasn’t shown signs that he will cut interest rates soon. It also comes against the backdrop of widespread market turmoil over the administration’s far-reaching trade war.
Trump’s fury with Powell burst into public view on Thursday morning, when he said in a post on Truth Social that his “termination cannot come fast enough!”
But Powell’s job looks safe for now.
Bessent is a mediocre Treasury Secretary, in no way the match for his counterparts. Yet he is increasingly all that’s standing between Trump and his most feverish nutjobs and far bigger financial catastrophe.
Given Loomer’s success firing NSA Director Timothy Haugh and six NSC staffers, it may be only a matter of time before the nutjobs get to Bessent, too.
The third cabinet level blowup is more opaque. As laid out here, three of Whiskey Pete Hegseth’s top aides were escorted out of the Pentagon in the wake of a leak investigation. Politico reported that they were fired — passive voice — on Friday, but the guy who led the investigation used to explain their ouster is also leaving his current role.
Joe Kasper, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s chief of staff will leave his role in the coming days for a new position at the agency, according to a senior administration official, amid a week of turmoil for the Pentagon.
Senior adviser Dan Caldwell, Hegseth deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll, the chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, were placed on leave this week in an ongoing leak probe. All three were terminated on Friday, according to three people familiar with the matter, who, like others, were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.
[snip]
Two of the people said Carroll and Selnick plan to sue for wrongful termination. The Pentagon did not respond to a request of comment.
Kasper had requested an investigation into Pentagon leaks in March, which included military operational plans for the Panama Canal, a second carrier headed to the Red Sea, Musk’s visit and a pause in the collection of intelligence for Ukraine.
But some at the Pentagon also started to notice a rivalry between Kasper and the fired advisers.
“Joe didn’t like those guys,” said one defense official. “They all have different styles. They just didn’t get along. It was a personality clash.”
The changes will leave Hegseth without a chief of staff, deputy chief of staff, or senior adviser in his front office.
“There is a complete meltdown in the building, and this is really reflecting on the secretary’s leadership,” said a senior defense official. “Pete Hegseth has surrounded himself with some people who don’t have his interests at heart.” [my emphasis]
Some of those targeted — who have long-standing ties to Hegseth, going back to his failed non-profit management — are denying any role in leaks.
Whatever the genesis of this upheaval or the partisan explanation for it, it leaves a wildly unqualified man at the top of the world’s largest military with no top aides.
There are other signs of the collapse of all management inside the White House — such as the White House attempt to explain away their attack on Harvard with a bullshit claim that they accidentally sent out a letter demanding to effectively take over Harvard University.
Everywhere you look you have to wonder whether Susie Wiles is as much in charge as Amy Gleason is at DOGE, whether her title of Chief of Staff is just a convenient fiction to cover up for the reality that Trump does whatever the last person in the room tells him to do.
And often as not, the last person in the room is Stephen Miller.
We’ve already seen that the three cabinet secretaries struggling to assert control over their own agencies deferred to Stephen Miller when he told the participants of the famous Signal chat what Trump thought.
That is, it’s not just that Stephen Miller is often the last one in the room with Trump. It’s not just that Stephen Miller’s policy ideas are batshit insane (and that he’s the author of Trump’s most egregious abuses of power). It’s also that Miller often stands in as the Word of DOGE, the Word of Trump.
Kremlinologists are pointing to evidence — his demotion at Trump’s most recent cabinet meeting, for example — that Elon’s power at the White House has started to wane (while ignoring that Elon has moved onto the next phase of takeover, cashing in, cashing in, and cashing in).
But behind all the intrigue, Stephen Miller’s ascendance remains, apparently uncontested and possibly unbound.
This just in. Car part inventory in Japanese warehouses are 200% overstocked, especially Nissan. One official has stated ….“ it appears that they will be eating their Datson Cogs!!!
Sorry Springfield.
LB
*Groan*
Lawnboy – “Datsun Cogs”? Brilliant, but my guess is 75% who read that did not make that leap back to 1986.
Springfield will do okay methinks….
I tried to work up a Spacely/Cogswell tie in but came up blank….
re Elon cashing in:
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/04/tesla-makes-its-cars-lie-about-their-mileage-lawsuit-claims/m
Oops! Fixed link:
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/04/tesla-makes-its-cars-lie-about-their-mileage-lawsuit-claims/
It’s all fun and games on the Potomac until they need to start a land war in Asia (or Canada, Panama or Greenland) to distract from the domestic disaster they will have created.
Yemen is more or less in Asia, and the war plans have already leaked.
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WWIII the US will be a pushover and nobody cares.
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So you’re saying the community here are nobodies. Got it.
Welcome to emptywheel.
A pushover, no, because our military is too good at what they do and have very good systems to work with (see how they’ve been working in Ukraine to compare Russian and US weapon performance).
But, the alienation campaign will also make our quondam allies think hard about whether to support Convict-1 / Krasnov in his tail-wagging adventures. This is in sharp contrast to the unquestioned support of American policy (heck, Australia even went to Vietnam with us) and introduces an element of uncertainty about the outcome. This is also the expected side effect as well for abandoning Africa to China (as noted at the top of the post) because China will have access to resources and the USA will not.
Wars are about logistics first and foremost, especially when facing an enemy such as the PRC which will take some time to remove as a threat.
What is it that “our military” does that is “too good at what they do”?
Maybe it’s what they did in Iraq, killed/injured millions, destroyed infrastructure, ran with tail in between their legs. And got Iran tighter with Iraq.
Bush six weeks after attacking even declared “Mission Accomplished”. What did US “Accomplish”?
Troops in Iraq even had to ask people in US to send them body armor because military didn’t have enough to protect the troops.
How many Americans and allies died and injured in that war, munitions lost?
Same in Afghanistan?
Same in Viet Nam?
“too good” alright.
xyxyxyxy – you clearly haven’t been paying attention to the performance of the Bradleys in Ukraine and how Ukraine improved their fortunes once NATO doctrines were implemented in the military. Even though the Houthis and others have been taking frequent potshots at the fleet, none have hit home. The Iranians and North Koreans don’t dare to challenge us, and even the PRC only does penny ante gamesmanship. So, I stand by my statement.
What you describe is the failure of Republican leadership which is a whole different discussion. Remember that Shrub let OBL go at Tora Bora, Obama gave OBL his burial at sea.
Hey Rugger_9 April 21, 2025 2:00 pm
When was last time US won a battle or war and against what country?
Grenada?
Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan was during both Republican and Democrat admins.
I think you’re on target here. The B-2s pre-staged in Diego Garcia is tipping Convict-1 / Krasnov’s hand. If the economy blows up as expected, he’ll need a distraction and the Iranians are obvious targets.
Bibi and MBS (as well as most Gulf states) don’t like them, they’re supporting terrorism between the Houthis, Hamas and Hezbollah (among others) and we’ve got bones to pick with them as well. Putin would also love us opening up a pathway to a warm water port by flattening the ability of Iran to resist Russian ambitions.
I have an ugly feeling, halfway between fear and intuition, that those B2s are armed with nukes. Can anyone talk me down, or am I on target?
No one will say with certainty they have nukes (cannot confirm or deny) but these B2s only need conventional weapons to create a casus belli. Any bomb would be enough to start hostilities.
Note that Iran is too large and too unified a society (unlike Iraq with its many factions) to be crushed quickly.
Stephen Miller as Edith Wilson was not on my bingo card, but somebody was always going to have to fill the power vacuum left by a President laser-focused on grift and revenge. Its nothing but Kremlinology from here on out. I wonder what Miller thinks of Vance.
EW’s post is one of the scariest I’ve seen in a long time. As for Miller’s view of Vance, if Trump actually dies or is incapacitated, it doesn’t matter. Vance will be in charge. Now, could Miller engineer a Vance resignation? That would involve Byzantine expertise Miller doesn’t have.
If Vance succeeds Convict-1 / Krasnov, it will not be an improvement in policy, but I suspect some more retribution housecleaning will be in order for the ones who bypassed JD. He does seem to have a pretty thin skin in his own right, and he also has his own sugar daddy in Peter Thiel. What I don’t know is how well Thiel and Elno get along. Cage match?
I suspect the power desires of Congress will be reignited in a Vance Presidency. MAGA won’t fully fall in behind him, so seats will be at peril over there
Miller has been the acting president since the beginning. Trump cares about nothing but wreaking destruction and getting press. Who does everyone think WRITES all those executive orders? Miller has been a busy boy, and the busier he gets, the worse it is for the rest of us.
Unlike so many MAGA types, Miller is motivated not by financial gain but by hate. Pure hate, and long-simmering schemes and grievances. His head is cool in a bad way. The thing he has in common with Trump is that he hates himself, at the core, but he will exercise that self-hatred on the world far more skillfully than Trump ever could.
Trump has no clue. he just signs with his crayon whatever miller places in front of him
I just wanted to pop in and say how much I absolutely ADORE usage of “Wormtongue.” I’m a Word Nerd and I SEE you!
You woke me from word nerdery slumber.
The “snake-tongue” origin had sailed over my sleepy head. Tolkien, too.
Thanks for that.
Add in Putin playing the role of Sauron and our as-yet-undiscovered palantir between Sauron and Wormtongue. Miller functions as Saruman.
FWIW, Wormtongue correlates better to Navarro because neither realize how they’re merely cogs in the machine not worthy of respect.
Pardon my Tolkien pedantry, but “Wormtongue” only works for Miller if you ignore the comparison of Trump with Theoden, who Wormtongue whispered to. There are no redeemable characters in the Trump orbit. And Trump is the snake oil salesman, par excellence, who concocted the whole thing; he is the raison de their fucking etre, not a witless automaton.
Miller et al are telling him what he wants to hear, even though he’s not capable of understanding the fine points, like how to overthrow a government and not get caught at it — nor does that kind of “nuance” even register for him. Trump is using Hitler as his role model, so there is that.
Miller is his own arch-villain in their badly written, Government-funded podcast, but he’ll be fused to Trump in a way that Grima couldn’t achieve with Theoden. Their souls, otoh, are entertwined more like Wormtongue and Saruan, his real master.
There you are:
Hitler = Sauron (his ideology is rampant right now, i.e., he lives)
Trump = Saruman (who, interestingly, rode the swell of an eco/military disaster to his eventual doom), and
Miller = Wormtounge (but loyal beyond the point at which Trump will eventually disown him? Time will tell).
My guess is that Susan Collins is going to cast herself as Theoden (female version); her unlearned tutelage at the feet of Margaret Chase Smith finally might be finding it’s resting place in her bio. The historical imperative seems undeniable.
Whenever I read articles about WH intrigue from unnamed sources, I wonder who is benefitting from framing the narrative for the news media. If no attempt is made to oust Bessent, it might just be that Navarro is going to be increasingly busy with other WH duties to be named later. It is interesting that PS Leavitt facilitated an immediate press conference after Trump agreed with Bessent.
I think Musk and Miller are the two ‘eminence grise’ of this regime. Musk has Trump’s ear on dismantling the government and to a certain extent on the economy. Miller gets to manage the revenge and retribution tour and immigration. Both Musk and Miller whisper in Trump’s ear on foreign policy. Wiles is probably there to assure Trump that everything is going according to plan.
And the push for AI to replace everything has to be musk.
Trump is bringing back manufacturing jobs!
https://www.industryweek.com/leadership/companies-executives/news/55284249/mack-trucks-to-lay-off-at-least-250-manufacturing-workers
I am beginning to have a more and more visceral—rather than merely cognitive—reaction to what it means “to flood the zone …”.
(For those who can, please support emptywheel on behalf of those who can’t. With grateful thanks, Sandor).
This is how bad it is:
In Saturday Phila. Inquirer section A has THIRTEEN stories about the Trump trainwreck.
1. Immigrants falsely labeled dead by Social Security Admin.
2. Trump replaced IRS commissioner after just 3 days.
3. Rubio says Trump ready to move on from Ukraine peace talks.
4. Trump picks Fox’s Mark Levin for Homeland Security.
5. Gracia moved from Salvadoran prison.
6. White House launches Covid website blaming origin on lab leak.
7. Gov. Shapiro still hasn’t heard from Trump about assassination attempt.
8. Pennsylvania has higher than average cuts to federal workforce.
9. Mack Truck manufacturing plant laying off 250 because of Trump tariffs.
10. Trump’s attacks on Jerome Powell may threaten the Fed’s independence.
11. EEOC to sideline transgender discrimination cases.
12. Tufts University student Ozturk detained without due process.
13. Trump reclassifying federal employees under Schedule F, making them easier to fire.
And that’s just the first 12 pages.
You might hope that the Rs who voted against conviction in the first two impeachments would be rethinking it, but no…
It’s a flaming dumpster of Trumpsters for sure.
NYT is reporting a second Signal chat about the Houthi strike that was set up by Hegseth himself with his wife and brother (I doubt either were cleared or had need to know). This is the kind of leak that comes out when your staff doesn’t like you in addition to your being ‘stoooopid’.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/20/us/politics/hegseth-yemen-attack-second-signal-chat.html
I guess this might be a good time to repeat these two short poems I wrote for Marcy’s 3/30/25 post on Hegseth:
Hegseth, Hegseth, reckless with death,
Has a wife (so did Macbeth)
If she’s now on a Signal cell
It’s two for one to raise pell-mell
Hegseth, Hegseth, reckless with death,
Has a wife (does she test his breath?)
If he put her on a Signal cell
What is next for show-and-tell?
I recall a couple of weeks back there was a small-scale tizzy about Whiskey Pete’s wife being involved in sensitive DoD meetings, so this revelation should surprise no one. It would follow that while Convict-1 / Krasnov has Miller and Navarro, Whiskey Pete has his unauthorized and unqualified inner circle as well.
Parlatore may get into trouble with his law license as well, because unauthorized access to sensitive DoD information (note: classification is not necessary) is stilla felony, and Whiskey Pete is launching the three employees out of his department for doing just that. The precedent and standard is therefore established, and my WAG is that these leaks are out because of the hypocrisy.
Savage Librarian, I’d love to see what you can do with Oops!…I Did It Again by Britney Spears.
Très sauvage!
As I understand it, prospective litigants Selnick and Carroll were also on the chat. My money is on them as the source for this story. Payback is a, … well, you know.
You had me at “absolutely insane.” So I went to read it. It truly is around the bend, tragically, demonically and criminally insane. They are systematically atrophying, corroding, disabling the functions of government. There’s something nightmarish about it.
How can a country and its people allow its government to do this to it?
The Unites States today is at once a world historical laughing stock and a threat to existence itself.
The last sentence sums it up neatly.
On the Signal chat deferral to Steven Miller. I think this partial transcription of what Miller said was, “As I heard it, the president was clear: green light”.
From the first time I read that, I thought it sounded like Miller called the shot. Maybe Trump did say that, maybe not. But it sounded like that was what Miller wanted to hear, either way.
He didn’t say “Trump said.” He said, “as I heard it.”.
Similar to how just about anyone (mainly maga-ish) can hear almost anything they want to hear in one of Trump’s endless circular babbles.
I wonder if the idea for the phrasing is plausible deniability when the accountability rolls around. Miller knows that Convict-1 / Krasnov will reflexively deny he said any such thing and a waffling like this would interfere with charging Miller with lying.
It really does sound like some word play to me.
“As I heard it” is the hedge. Then he says the President was clear. Oh, really?
Trump: “…I hear Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a MS-13 gang member…”
======
You hear?!? You don’t know, yet you’re deporting him without due process?
(What a clown!)
He thinks everything he sees on Fox must be truth. The Felon Guy has the brain of a five-year-old, without the curiosity or ability to learn.
This is Fox’s m.o.; They write “alleged” MS-13 gang member, but talking in interviews, its always a fact.
This in turn causes the commenters to take it on face value that Kilmar Abrego Garcia IS a gang member, and they’re off to the races: “Why do Dems support gang members?” “Why is a Senator coddling a gang member.”
This is why Fox “News” is so dangerous. They lie to get their social conservative agenda realized.
This is why nearly all Rwing commenters at Fox “News” think Dems and Liberals are evil personified. Nothing will convince them otherwise. Not even all of the good work Joe Biden did for them in four years.
He over”heard” Trump talking to his caddy about how “light” he should hit the ball to get it on the “green”.
Trumpology is going to be a daily seminar before this is over.
“As a constituent …” I tell (threaten) my representatives that I foresee their names, if not on individual titles, then well represented in the indexes of the many, many, books found in the section on “Trump Studies” of whatever are the bookstores of the future—their names, for all including their progeny, to see and read about. What a legacy they will have.
Trump has found yet another way to raise prices for Americans purchasing goods made overseas. In addition to the tariffs on actual goods, he plans to charge steep fees on Chinese-built cargo ships that stop at US ports. This is regardless of where goods originate. It is apparently an effort to revive the US shipbuilding industry. Chinese-built ships make up most of the fleets of the world’s 10 largest shipping carriers, along with other east Asian countries including South Korea and Japan.
It’s just too much. Apparently building ships is what makes a country great, and not helping others in need. What ever happened to that second greatest of all commandments in the Christian world, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’?
Reagan closed down a bunch of potential shipyards, back when they were Navy yards.
PRC ships are notorious among the merchant marine for multiple deficiencies in operation, maintenance and design, but they are cheap to build and run and ergo are used wherever possible. That was one of the reasons US shipbuilding suffered because they weren’t competing on a level playing field against a government-subsidized industry. It’s an old problem.
Shipbuilding is pretty grubby as well, and carries significant environmental issues if not done properly (remember, the PRC doesn’t care about this) which adds to costs. So, if the idea is to support more American shipbuilding I’m fine with the idea as long as it’s funded for the next 50 years (not a typo). Also note that it can’t be done just anywhere, a deepwater access to the sea is needed That’s why the latest attempt by techbros in Solano County to build their enclave is doomed to failure because the channel is subject to all sorts of shoaling due to the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers.
As for the BRAC, it ran for several iterations with four rounds from 1988 – 1995 and a followup in 2005. There were some curious choices, such as closing the extremely convenient SF Bay facilities (one could be into open water in less than half an hour) in favor of Everett WA (several hours around several islands that are good hiding places for subs). It had a lot to do with the fact that the Speaker of the House was from WA as well as the stink raised by Art Agnos against homeporting the USS Missouri in SF. Almost everyone else in the region were aghast at Agnos’ stupidity.
Thanks to you and to P J Evans for your replies; quite educational. I assume that Trump will never actually support shipbuilding in the US, so this is, then, simply another way of extorting money from, and hurting, other people. Both of those being well-known Trump life goals.
Clearer picture here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6nHF-Kz1RA
If I recall correctly:
-The surcharge is only on the first five trips and only on the first stop if multiple stopovers on one trip.
-Also some of the big Chinese carriers have Taiwanese subsidiaries which they can offload the cargo onto to avoid the fees.
-Lots more.
For news on shipping, follow Sal Mercogliano on his “What’s Going on With Shipping?”.
One hell of a story that government works, “NM’s Free Child Care Lifted 120K Out of Poverty”
https://www.newser.com/story/367178/nm-offered-free-child-care-and-120k-escaped-poverty.html
Child care is the BIG issue for trying to make households work, especially when two incomes are needed (whether done by one or two people). I’m glad NM has something useful as a model for the rest of us.
JD Vance’s visit to the now deceased Pope Francis 2d before his passing on Easter raises conspiracy theories on exactly what virus the US VP sprinkled around the day he visited the Pope.
Dan Brown Vatican novel #3, chapt 1, pg5.
Trump offers to be the next pope. “I know more about Christianity than anybody. Nobody else has 30,000 Easter eggs on their lawn. Nobody else sold Easter corporate sponsorships for $200,000. Nobody else took a bible made in China for $3 and sold it here for $60. On Easter these two big strong men came up to me with tears in their eyes and thanked me for saving their souls.”
Nobody else took a bible to a church for a photoshoot through a path cleared by police using tear gas and other riot control tactics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_photo_op_at_St._John's_Church
Nobody else had a sermon about showing mercy written just for them by an Episcopalian bishop. https://apnews.com/article/trump-inaugural-prayer-service-washington-national-cathedral-interfaith-a95b36f962be93c8647cc5144266da11
Nobody else talks about how good they are at religion and also has no clue how to behave in church. Or even what the prayers are.
In a radio interview on WHAM 1180AM, host Bob Lonsberry asked the GOP presidential front-runner if there is a favorite Bible verse or story that has informed his thinking or his character throughout his life.
“Well, I think many. I mean, when we get into the Bible, I think many, so many. And some people, look, an eye for an eye, you can almost say that,” Trump said. “That’s not a particularly nice thing. But you know, if you look at what’s happening to our country, I mean, when you see what’s going on with our country, how people are taking advantage of us, and how they scoff at us and laugh at us. And they laugh at our face, and they’re taking our jobs, they’re taking our money, they’re taking the health of our country. And we have to be very firm and have to be very strong. And we can learn a lot from the Bible, that I can tell you.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-names-his-favorite-bible-verse/
I suspect the average clergyman or woman would assume that answer means Trump never opened a Bible in his life. But his lifelong behavior makes that obvious.
Trmp is a shoo-in for Pope. After all, he knows the Two Corinthians.
@gmoke:
Many people say there are more than just two. It’s a very strange situation out there, with many beautiful Christians praising the lord, etc. Trump bibles explain it completely.
With regard to the current Trump administration and his cabinet of billionaires; This verse seems applicable, Ecclesiastes 10:16 “Woe to the land whose king is a child, and whose princes feast in the morning”
Five-year-old kid’s answer, who has heard sermons and doesn’t understand them at all.
(I see the Pentateuch as introducing people to laws as things that aren’t whims, the later books as getting them to understand justice (AKA “righteousness”), and the NT as expanding it to everyone and trying to teach them to treat everyone well.)