That goofy dork looking guy Nick from Tree Stuff can shove it.

My grandfather was an engineer at the Canton paper mill in the 50s. He was fired when he started suggesting they try to do a little to not kill ALL the fish in the Pigeon River. When I read the word canton, I can smell it.
 
DSMc said:
Fox News is one of the only mainstream media sources that actually are reporting, what,when where, how and why.
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Speaking of actual news, do you remember when Fox knowingly, continuously and maliciously lied about the 2020 election?

apnews.com

Fox, Dominion reach $787M settlement over election claims

Fox and Dominion Voting Systems have reached a $787 million settlement in the voting machine company’s defamation lawsuit. The agreement averts a trial in a case that exposed how the top-rated network chased viewers by promoting lies about the 2020 presidential election. Dominion lawyer Justin...
apnews.com apnews.com

 
You know I didn't vote for Trump because of all the shit that happened in the first go round. Left a bad taste in my mouth. But, because I purposely seek news from all sides, it is blatantly obvious that current situation is entirely different.

A change was needed and one is happening. What are all your solutions to accomplish anything that needs to be done?
 
DSMc said:
You know I didn't vote for Trump because of all the shit that happened in the first go round. Left a bad taste in my mouth. But, because I purposely seek news from all sides, it is blatantly obvious that current situation is entirely different.

A change was needed and one is happening. What are all your solutions to accomplish anything that needs to be done?
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Eat. The. Rich.
 
Here is a clip what news should look like. I wanna see the sources being cited, not just be told that we did the research and you can trust us.
 
Rico you done gone and dug up the topic of trump's approx $1billion dollars of personal malfeasance. Might besmurch his public standing. Now thar's an "alternitive -to- facts"! ba-dump-bump! lest we forget. Actually it's more mentally healthy to try to forget.

anyone got a sharpie and a map? ; ) Are you in the shine light up your butthole camp or the injecting bleach camp? Whinnnney how's the gut worms Willlllbur? On a more serious note mumps or measles (I forget which) can sterilise your kids for life. Scared the shit out of us back in the day. If you survive polio you get to look forward to post-polio.

The US grabbed a good mfr business opportunity when they hooked up with the Alberta oil. Wonder how much $ that has injected into the US economy through the years. Wouldn't be doing it if the $ weren't right. Probably also a sweet deal on Canadian electricity or they wouldn't be doing it. $ talks. Why would they screw themselves by choosing the more expensive option ancillary costs included? trump impression voice "Getting ripped off" with appropriate trump credibilty level. The caravans of murderers and drug dealing rapists are coming - to pick our crops and be nannys. Clean burning coal. Good people on both sides. Kids in cages. Grab them by the pussy. Perfect letters. Who's boat is that? There's a lot of water. Pocahontas. Shit hole countries. Putin said so gotta believe him. new - Zelensky started the russian invasion of Ukraine war. They're eating your pets. Gawd it's all coming back to me.
 
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DSMc said:
What are all your solutions to accomplish anything that needs to be done?
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I earned my $8m day rate already when I pointed out the 60% of the pentagon’s assets are unaccounted for. Cutting their budget by 60% seems in order, at the least. You told me to be patient and wait for Doge to get to it. What’s the holdup?

While I’ve been waiting I’m watching people get shipped to a prison in El Salvador with no due process, in one case admittedly in error, another a teen picked at random, sometimes directly in defiance with orders from the Supreme Court (with all 9 judges siding with the deportee!). Pretty depraved shit, letting people get erased like that, knowingly innocent!

I’ve put lots of great ideas in my comments here. Like I’ve been saying, we have some counties that had 48% forested area catastrophically damaged by Helene. Bring the logging trucks up here, get this fuel out of our forests and spur some economic growth.
 
Stumpsprouts said:
I earned my $8m day rate already when I pointed out the 60% of the pentagon’s assets are unaccounted for. Cutting their budget by 60% seems in order, at the least. You told me to be patient and wait for Doge to get to it. What’s the holdup?
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theyre making the savings where it counts (by deconstructing civil society and an advanced economy for ??? benefit)
Gokp5bdXAAAGLSx.jpeg
 
evo said:
Chilling
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Chilling indeed. This whole thing to me is about the chilling of free speech and making an entire populace try to be more invisible than they already are. This guy was just picked at random but the signals this administration is sending are clear. Keep out of sight, don’t do anything political against the administration whether you are but especially if you aren’t citizen, and that the administration will do anything it wants without legal justification.
 
RyanCafferky said:
Chilling indeed. This whole thing to me is about the chilling of free speech and making an entire populace try to be more invisible than they already are. This guy was just picked at random but the signals this administration is sending are clear. Keep out of sight, don’t do anything political against the administration whether you are but especially if you aren’t citizen, and that the administration will do anything it wants without legal justification.
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Some people are being picked at random...by using AI:

x.JPG
 
RyanCafferky said:
Chilling indeed. This whole thing to me is about the chilling of free speech and making an entire populace try to be more invisible than they already are. This guy was just picked at random but the signals this administration is sending are clear. Keep out of sight, don’t do anything political against the administration whether you are but especially if you aren’t citizen, and that the administration will do anything it wants without legal justification.
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It’s the logical progression of the patriot act. Unfortunately due process has been an issue in the past, this is nothing more than a check to see how far the envelop can be pushed.
 
"Compliance is the new American Dream"
No one wants to step out of line. To be fair, some are trying. Representative Chris Van Hollen is going to El Salvador (at significant personal risk) to check on Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a wrongfully deported Maryland father, who the Supreme has ordered to be returned to the States in that 9-0 vote, again, a demand that the Trump administration has mostly ignored.

Right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk immediately twisted the narrative, claiming Van Hollen was "defending criminals and illegals over Americans." In reality, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a legal permanent resident who was wrongfully deported without due process, a fact the Trump administration itself acknowledged as an "error." Yet the false narrative persists, which is part of the political risk for any legislator who stands up for constitutional rights.

And most of Congress has remained silent. The legislative branch has largely retreated from its constitutional duty. Rather than collective action, we get isolated acts of heroism, because the system of checks and balances has eroded into a system of compliance.

This is a pattern: no one wants to take a risk. Not elected officials. Not 19-year-olds picking college majors. Because in this economy, everything is compliance now. As the Italian philosopher Umberto Eco warned in his essay "Ur-Fascism," social systems don't collapse overnight. They erode through small surrenders, through the gradual normalization of compliance as a civic virtue.

There is compliance with markets, with political power, with the unspoken rule that you must always be optimizing: for income, access, or institutional favor. Majors aren’t educational pathways anymore. They’re compliance signals. Just like a tariff exemption. Or a congressional vote.
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...
Congress could stop him! They have the authority. There’s even a bipartisan bill in the Senate that would force a vote to approve any new tariffs after 60 days. Still, nothing.

This paralysis is what Eco described as a “fear of difference” where dissent is dangerous, alternative views are threatening, and deviation is punished. What we get is a legislative body that performs democracy, but no longer exercises its constitutional powers.

Standing up to Trump would mean risking access to donors, media cycles, committee power, and the favor of a political ecosystem that now functions more like a loyalty marketplace than a deliberative body. They ignore the Constitution at great costs to their constituents.

So they comply.
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...
As Umberto Eco warned in Ur-Fascism, authoritarian systems don’t return with parades and uniforms. They return in habits. In rhetoric. In a culture where obedience masquerades as patriotism - or as economic strategy.

When disagreement becomes disloyalty, when nuance is dismissed as weakness, when conformity becomes civic virtue, we’re no longer living in a democracy. We’re participating in the performance of one.

Eco outlined a mindset: traditionalism, irrationalism, the cult of action for action’s sake. A worldview where diversity is feared, intellectualism is mocked, and masculinity is tied to violence. Where reflection is weakness, pacifism is betrayal, and Newspeak replaces thought.
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and to get back to the tariffs and trade war and how its going to hurt americans and american business, from foreign affairs:

Trade Wars Are Easy To Lose: Beijing Has Escalation Dominance In The U.S.-China Tariff Fight​

By Adam S. Posen​


“When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with,” U.S. President Donald Trump famously tweeted in 2018, “trade wars are good, and easy to win.” This week, when the Trump administration imposed tariffs of more than 100 percent on U.S. imports from China, setting off a new and even more dangerous trade war, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent offered a similar justification: “I think it was a big mistake, this Chinese escalation, because they’re playing with a pair of twos. What do we lose by the Chinese raising tariffs on us? We export one-fifth to them of what they export to us, so that is a losing hand for them.”

In short, the Trump administration believes it has what game theorists call escalation dominance over China and any other economy with which it has a bilateral trade deficit. Escalation dominance, in the words of a report by the RAND Corporation, means that “a combatant has the ability to escalate a conflict in ways that will be disadvantageous or costly to the adversary while the adversary cannot do the same in return.” If the administration’s logic is correct, then China, Canada, and any other country that retaliates against U.S. tariffs is indeed playing a losing hand.

But this logic is wrong: it is China that has escalation dominance in this trade war. The United States gets vital goods from China that cannot be replaced any time soon or made at home at anything less than prohibitive cost. Reducing such dependence on China may be a reason for action, but fighting the current war before doing so is a recipe for almost certain defeat, at enormous cost. Or to put it in Bessent’s terms: Washington, not Beijing, is betting all in on a losing hand.
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SHOW YOUR HAND​

The administration’s claims are off base on two counts. For one thing, both sides get hurt in a trade war, because both lose access to things their economies want and need and that their people and companies are willing to pay for. Like launching an actual war, a trade war is an act of destruction that puts the attacker’s own forces and home front at risk, as well: if the defending side did not believe it could retaliate in a way that would harm the attacker, it would surrender.

Bessent’s poker analogy is misleading because poker is a zero-sum game: I win only if you lose; you win only if I lose. Trade, by contrast, is positive-sum: in most situations, the better you do, the better I do, and vice versa. In poker, you get nothing back for what you put in the pot unless you win; in trade, you get it back immediately, in the form of the goods and services you buy.

The Trump administration believes that the more you import, the less you have at stake—that because the United States has a trade deficit with China, importing more Chinese goods and services than China does U.S. goods and services, it is less vulnerable. This is factually wrong, not a matter of opinion. Blocking trade reduces a nation’s real income and purchasing power; countries export in order to earn the money to buy things they do not have or are too expensive to make at home.

What’s more, even if you focus solely on the bilateral trade balance, as the Trump administration does, it bodes poorly for the United States in a trade war with China. In 2024, U.S. exports of goods and services to China were $199.2 billion, and imports from China were $462.5 billion, resulting in a trade deficit of $263.3 billion. To the degree that the bilateral trade balance predicts which side will “win” in a trade war, the advantage lies with the surplus economy, not the deficit one. China, the surplus country, is giving up sales, which is solely money; the United States, the deficit country, is giving up goods and services it does not produce competitively or at all at home.

Money is fungible: if you lose income, you can cut back spending, find sales elsewhere, spread the burden across the country, or draw down savings (say, by doing fiscal stimulus). China, like most countries with overall trade surpluses, saves more than it invests—meaning that it, in a sense, has too much savings. The adjustment would be relatively easy. There would be no critical shortages, and it could replace much of what it normally sold to the United States with sales domestically or to others.
Countries with overall trade deficits, like the United States, spend more than they save. In trade wars, they give up or reduce the supply of things they need (since the tariffs make them cost more), and these are not nearly as fungible or easily substituted for as money. Consequently, the impact is felt in specific industries, locations, or households that face shortages, sometimes of necessary items, some of which are irreplaceable in the short term. Deficit countries also import capital—which makes the United States more vulnerable to shifts in sentiment about the reliability of its government and about its attractiveness as a place to do business. When the Trump administration makes capricious decisions to impose an enormous tax increase and great uncertainty on manufacturers’ supply chains, the result will be reduced investment into the United States, raising interest rates on its debt.

OF DEFICITS AND DOMINANCE​

In short, the U.S. economy will suffer enormously in a large-scale trade war with China, which the current levels of Trump-imposed tariffs, at more than 100 percent, surely constitute if left in place. In fact, the U.S. economy will suffer more than the Chinese economy will, and the suffering will only increase if the United States escalates. The Trump administration may think it’s acting tough, but it’s in fact putting the U.S. economy at the mercy of Chinese escalation.

The United States will face shortages of critical inputs ranging from basic ingredients of most pharmaceuticals to inexpensive semiconductors used in cars and home appliances to critical minerals for industrial processes including weapons production. The supply shock from drastically reducing or zeroing out imports from China, as Trump purports to want to achieve, would mean stagflation, the macroeconomic nightmare seen in the 1970s and during the COVID pandemic, when the economy shrank and inflation rose simultaneously. In such a situation, which may be closer at hand than many think, the Federal Reserve and fiscal policymakers are left with only terrible options and little chance of staving off unemployment except by further raising inflation.

When it comes to real war, if you have reason to be afraid of being invaded, it would be suicidal to provoke your adversary before you’ve armed yourself. That is essentially what Trump’s economic attack risks: given that the U.S. economy is entirely dependent on Chinese sources for vital goods (pharmaceutical stocks, cheap electronic chips, critical minerals), it is wildly reckless not to ensure alternate suppliers or adequate domestic production before cutting off trade. By doing it the other way around, the administration is inviting exactly the kind of damage it says it wants to prevent.
This could all be intended as just a negotiating tactic, Trump’s and Bessent’s repeated statements and actions notwithstanding. But even on those terms, the strategy will do more harm than good. As I warned in Foreign Affairs last October, the fundamental problem with Trump’s economic approach is that it would need to carry out enough self-harming threats to be credible, which means that markets and households would expect ongoing uncertainty. Americans and foreigners alike would invest less rather than more in the U.S. economy, and they would no longer trust the U.S. government to live up to any deal, making a negotiated settlement or agreement to deescalate difficult to achieve. As a result, U.S. productive capacity would decline rather than improve, which would only increase the leverage that China and others have over the United States.

The Trump administration is embarking on an economic equivalent of the Vietnam War—a war of choice that will soon result in a quagmire, undermining faith at home and abroad in both the trustworthiness and the competence of the United States—and we all know how that turned out.
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