Trump's Tariffs -- The Omission

 

Here's the list of the Malignant Fascist's across- the- board tariffs announced today.  See if you can spot the glaring omission in his list of draconian, self- sabotaging tariffs:

China - 34%

European Union - 20%

Vietnam - 46%

Taiwan - 32%

Japan - 24%

India - 26%

South Korea - 25%

Thailand - 36%

Switzerland - 31%

Indonesia - 32%

Malaysia - 24%

Cambodia - 49%

United Kingdom - 10%

South Africa - 30%

Brazil - 10%

Bangladesh - 37%

Singapore - 10%

Israel - 17%

Philippines - 17%

Chile - 10%

Australia - 10%

Pakistan - 29%

Turkey - 10%

Sri Lanka - 44%

Colombia - 10%

Peru - 10%

Nicaragua - 18%

Norway - 15%

Costa Rica - 10%

Jordan - 20%

Dominican Republic - 10%

United Arab Emirates - 10%

New Zealand - 10%

Argentina - 10%

Ecuador - 10%

Guatemala - 10%

Honduras - 10%

Madagascar - 47%

Myanmar (Burma) - 44%

Tunisia - 28%

Kazakhstan - 27%

Egypt - 10%

Saudi Arabia - 10%

El Salvador - 10%

Cote d’Iovire - 21%

Laos - 48%

Trinidad and Tobago - 10%

Morocco - 10%

Algeria - 30%

Oman - 10%

Uruguay - 10%

Bahamas - 10%

Lesotho - 50%

Ukraine - 10%

Bahrain - 10%

Qatar - 10%

Mauritius - 40%

Fiji - 32%

Iceland - 10%

Kenya - 10%

Liechtenstein - 37%

Guyana - 38%

Haiti - 10%

Bosnia and Herzegovina - 35%

Nigeria - 14%

Namibia - 21%

Brunei - 24%

Bolivia - 10%

Panama - 10%

Venezuela -15%

North Macedonia - 33%

Ethiopia - 10%

Ghana -10%

Serbia - 37%

Botswana - 37%

Notice the missing country in this mind- boggling list of friends, allies, and others?

Did anyone really think the Malignant Fascist would slap a tariff on his puppetmaster Putin?  

Contrary to White House spin, while trade with Russia has been greatly curtailed by sanctions, U.S. - Russia trade still amounted to $3.27 billion in 2024 -- a lot more than, say, Fiji.  So, not insignificant. Trump's Tariffs are another huge win for Russia, isolating the U.S. even further from the world, while Russia escapes any economic damage.  Well done, Agent Krasnov!

Today's Cartoons

 

(click on images to enlarge)

(John Buss, @repeat1968)

(Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

(Joe Heller, hellertoon.com)

(Morten Morland, The Times, London)

(John Deering, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

(Kevin Kallaugher, Baltimore Sun)

(Matt Davies, Newsday)

(J.D. Crowe, Alabama Media Group)

(Jeff Danziger, The Rutland Herald, VT)

(Bill Day, caglecartoons.com)

(Jack Ohman, Tribune Content Agency)

(Clay Jones, claytoonz.com)

(Becky Barnicoat, The New Yorker)

The Deep Cuts At Health And Human Services

 

Pseudo-science pushing, brain worm host Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., an utter disgrace to his family, is overseeing deep cuts in the staffs at CDC, NIH and the Food and Drug Administration, cuts that will impact America's health.  RFK, Jr.'s slogan of "Make America Healthy Again" is an Orwellian take on what will actually happen with the anti-vaccine, anti-health research Secretary.  From Jonathan Cohn at The Bulwark:

"On Tuesday morning, the Department of Health and Human Services informed thousands of employees they were losing their jobs. The notices came by email and, in one sense, they were not a surprise. Last Thursday, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the layoffs were imminent, as part of a broader restructuring designed to shrink the department’s total workforce by 25 percent.

But it’s one thing to know those layoffs are coming, quite another to learn about the real people who will no longer have jobs, the real positions that will no longer exist, and the real divisions that will no longer operate as they did before.

The sheer breadth of the cuts is staggering: The layoffs affected agencies that exist to fight deadly pathogens, to protect the nation’s drug supply, to finance and carry out cutting-edge research—along with countless other divisions and offices that touch everything from rural health to early childhood care."  (our emphasis)

RFK, Jr., will waste resources that could be going to these efforts by ginning up a "study" of the purported connection between vaccines and autism, a hobby horse of his that has been debunked for years, having a fellow vaccine denier head up the operation.  Ominously, HHS' leading scientist on vaccines, Dr. Peter Marks, resigned after blasting RFK, Jr.'s dangerous unscientific misinformation on vaccines. Marks was instrumental in the development of COVID-19 vaccines which saved millions of lives.

As we noted yesterday, the Malignant Fascist has decided to give Secretary Brain Worm responsibility for special needs and neurodivergent children, a program to be ripped out of the gutted Department of Education.  Sadly and unnecessarily, lives will be turned inside out and lost while this arrogant and unqualified health charlatan remains at the head of the Department of Health and Human Services.

BONUS:  As Cheryl Rofer put it --

Between retirements and firings, something like 20,000 people will leave the agency, which employed 82,000.

Say goodbye to research on Alzheimer’s dementia, m-RNA vaccine for cancer of the pancreas, surveillance of bird flu, and reliable food and drugs. 

 ... and so much more.

Skeets Of The Day

 

What's that Musk-y smell?  Defeat in Wisconsin! --

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Liberation Day" liberating $$ from American wallets --

 

 

 

Cowards and charlatans --

 

 

 

Trump retribution tour update --

 

 

Priceless 😁 --

 

 

Mid-Week Song

 

British duo Katie White and Jules De Martino, professionally known as The Ting Tings, were nominated for the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 2010, and since then have steadily grown their following and musical catalogue. "Home," their fifth studio album, after a hiatus of seven years to tour and raise their daughter, will be released in June, and a track from that album, pop-influenced "Good People Do Bad Things," is our song today.

QOTD -- No Exemptions!

 

"... If a farm family voted for Trump, believing that his policies were good, it seems strange that they would then demand that they, and only they, should be spared the full consequences of those policies.  Tariffs are the dish that rural America ordered for everyone. Now the dish has arrived at the table. For some reason, they do not want to partake themselves or pay their share of the bill. That’s not how it should work. What you serve to others you should eat yourself. And if rural America cannot choke down its portion, why must other Americans stomach theirs?" -- David Frum, in The Atlantic ($), on why Trumpers in the farm community need to eat the results of the tariffs their votes brought on.  They shouldn't be bailed out any more than any other sector, in our opinion.  Unfortunately, the full glory of Trumpism needs to be felt by all, innocent and guilty.

Wisconsin Delivers "Massive Blow" To Musk/ Trump Agenda; Dems Outperform In Florida

 

Proud to have Wisconsin roots this morning:

Wisconsin voters have elected a liberal justice to the state’s Supreme Court, with Susan Crawford defeating Elon Musk-backed Brad Schimel in the most expensive judicial election in American history and one of the first major electoral tests of Donald Trump’s presidency.

Crawford’s projected victory in a closely watched race for control of the court — serving as a proxy battle over the nation’s political future in the wake of Trump’s chaotic first few months back in the White House — will preserve a 4-3 liberal majority on the state’s highest court, which could decide on litigation involving abortion access and voting rights, among other critical issues.

Tuesday’s results in the swing state are expected to serve as an early litmus test for Americans’ response to Trump’s agenda at the ballot box, and they deliver a massive blow to Trump’s billionaire adviser, who has spent more than $20 million to support Schimel’s campaign.

A similarly high-stakes Wisconsin State Supreme court race in 2023 set a national spending record of $56 million for a state Supreme Court election.

This year’s race crushed that record, with more than $100 million, according to WisPolitics.com. Unprecedented turnout this year also led to ballot shortages in Wisconsin’s largest city, Milwaukee, as voters cast ballots in “historic” numbers, according to officials.  [snip]

Wisconsin voters “squarely rejected” Trump and Musk and right-wing special interest groups, according to Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin.

“And their message? Stay out of our elections and stay away from our courts — Wisconsin is not for sale,” he said in a statement following her projected victory.

“This was a Susan-versus-Goliath struggle of Biblical proportions,” Wikler, the state’s Democratic Party chair, said in a statement.

He said the election “demonstrates Musk and Trump have gone too far, and any politician allied with them could swiftly face the end of their political career.”  (our emphasis)

Turnout in Milwaukee, Madison, Kenosha, Eau Claire, La Crosse, Green Bay and Fox River Valley cities was high for Crawford.  It was, by any measure, a blowout:

 

In addition to the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, there were two elections in deep red Florida Congressional Districts yesterday as well that highlighted Democratic energy.  The Hill reports on both States:

Democratic energy was on full display in both Wisconsin and Florida. 

In Wisconsin, with more than 95 percent of the votes counted in the counties of Kenosha, Racine and Outagamie, Crawford was winning Kenosha by roughly 53 percent as of 11 p.m. ET Tuesday night — roughly the same amount Trump won the county by in 2024. 

And while votes are still being tallied, Crawford also appeared to have a good shot at flipping Racine and Outagamie, counties Trump also won last year. 

Crawford also overperformed in counties former Vice President Harris won in November, including in Door County where Crawford was winning the county by 56 percent compared to Harris’ 51 percent. [snip]

Despite the fact that Republicans turned out in Florida and ultimately nabbed wins, the party ultimately underperformed in both special House elections, as well as in the Wisconsin race. 

In Florida’s 6th district, Fine defeated his Democratic opponent Josh Weil by 14 points. Trump and Mike Waltz, the current national security adviser who previously held the seat, won the district by over 30 points by comparison. 

But it was Democrat Gay Valimont’s overperformance in Florida’s 1st Congressional District that appeared to raise eyebrows even more. Patronis defeated Valimont by 14.8 points five months after Trump won the district by 37 points. Democrats also celebrated flipping Escambia County; Valimont won it by just over three points on Tuesday after Trump won it by nearly 20 points in November.  

Democrats described the results as a warning to Republicans.  (our emphasis)

A warning to Republicans and a tonic for Democrats and anyone who values American freedom and democracy.  It was a very good day for us.

BONUS:  Justice-elect Crawford on the race --

 

BONUS II: Electoral-vote tells us Democrat-supported candidates won 5 out of 5 races in Wisconsin yesterday.

(Photo:  get that off your head, you South Afrikaner skipping dipshit! / AP)

Today's Cartoons

 

(click on images to enlarge)

(Benjamin Slyngstad, @slyngstad_cartoons)

(Bill Bramhall, New York Daily News)

(Gary Markstein, Creators.com)

(Rick McKee, caglecartoons.com)

(Ed Wexler, caglecartoons.com)

(John Darkow, Columbia Missourian)

(Nick Anderson, Tribune Content Agency)

(Adam Zyglis, The Buffalo News)

(Dave Granlund, politicalcartoons.com)

(John Cole, ncnewsonline.com)

(Bob Englehart, caglecartoons.com)

(Malcolm McGookin, caglecartoons.com, Australia)

(Harry Bliss, The New Yorker)

Another Craven Law Firm Bends Knee To Trump

 

The Malignant Fascist gets another scalp, and it's a particularly galling one:

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he and law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher reached a deal on actions to be taken by the company including providing $100 million in legal services and not engaging in diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

The deal comes as major law firms with ties to attorneys who have investigated Trump have been targeted with executive orders seeking to curtail their business with the federal government.

 

Three law firms - Perkins Coie, Wilmer Hale and Jenner & Block - have sued the administration over such orders, and judges have blocked key provisions of the administration’s orders.

 

A Willkie Farr spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

Willkie Farr employs 1,200 lawyers in the U.S. and five other countries and is home to Douglas Emhoff, who is married to former Democratic U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris.

We'd expect Mr. Emhoff to exit his cowardly firm, lest he have to exit from his marriage.  Let's hope any attorney with an ounce of integrity will leave this firm, and leave now.

Clients of this firm should also consider "If they won't fight for themselves, why expect them to fight for you?"

Alarming: Special Ed Program To HHS [UPDATED]

 

One of the many dangerous anti-science orders signed by the malicious Malignant Fascist came in February and involved moving the Special Education and child nutrition programs of the Education Department to the Department of Health and Human Services, headed by the notorious anti-science conspiracy theorist, former heroin addict and brain worm host Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  While the MF's move would take legislation to accomplish, that won't stop his lawless band from doing it anyway. Sarah Carr, writing in Slate.com, says parents are justifiably worried that RFK, Jr., will mishandle the assignment and force his unscientific ideas on neurodivergent children having disabilities, such as ADHD:

"Underlying the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again campaign, and most particularly a February executive order calling out ADHD medications and other commonly prescribed drugs for children as potential 'threats,' is the anti-science implication that neurodivergence is a fiction, curable, as suggested in the executive order, with a well-balanced diet and regular exercise. Parts of the order read a lot like recent declarations from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., offering another piece of evidence—as if his persistent illusions of link between vaccines and autism weren’t enough—that the secretary of health and human services believes that scientists and doctors are hurting rather than helping neurodivergent children. President Donald Trump recently announced that RFK Jr. will oversee special education for schools, meaning the secretary will now wield enormous influence in how children with disabilities are perceived and treated at the federal level." (our emphasis)

When someone's prescription for measles is cod liver oil, among other outrageous statements, it's past time to sound the alarm bell for neurodivergent kids to be subject to the notions of an anti-science crank. The only thing certain is that this will not end well for the kids.

UPDATE: HHS begins layoffs of thousands of staff involved in food safety, disease prevention, and research. RFK, Jr., thinks this will "save" taxpayers money (but not their lives).

(photo: RFK, Jr. and hungry worm. Getty Images / Royal Photographic Society)

Skeets Of The Day

 

Trump Tariffs "bigger than Smoot-Hawley" (p.s.,  that's NOT good) --

 

 

 

 

 

Trump's "new guard" (with mascot Kid Rock-head) accelerating brain drain -- 

 

 

 

 

Sad! (42% approve; 56% disapprove Trump's job as "president") --

 

Can we do this with Trump and his "new guard" someday? --

 

Paging Dr. Freud.  We have another slip --

 

What's that Musk-y smell?  The company you keep --

 

Save the date --

 

April (and November) Fools! --

 

 

QOTD -- Biting Predators

 

"...The collection of degenerates that make up Trump's cabinet makes sense mostly if you think of it as Trump, in his role as executive producer of the end of the American Century, casting the various roles in the cable news television programming he watches. These are, more or less without exception, people who would not be able to hold down a regular job; they are, all of them, instantly and obviously identifiable as predators, and the violence and harm that they have done to more or less everything they've touched over the course of their reckless lives proves it all out. But they are also the faces that have represented various broad archetypes—War, Computer, Medicines, Crime, Gold—on rightwing media, and this most avid and credulous consumer of rightwing media would instantly have understood them as credible.  [snip]

"But for all the ways in which this feels like the end, and all the ways in which it really represents something like the final surrender of a power structure that seems to have lost faith or just lost interest in itself, it is not actually an end. That cynicism, too, is Trumpian; the world will cease to matter to him the moment he leaves it, and so he is more than happy to decree that everyone and everything be buried alongside him. It will be important to remember the shame of this moment, both how it felt and how it worked, when it is time to build whatever will rise from it—to remember the blithe and brutal and self-delighted contempt with which this elite set out to devour every other better thing, and to work to build a life and a world that is not just strong enough to resist it but dedicated to its opposite." -- David Roth, in "Kingdom of the Biters" at Defector.com.  Using an anecdote from his previous worklife, Roth describes our current unholy mess as one created by predators ("biters") that victims (the voting public) failed to put an end to even after the first "bites" (Trump's first term/ J6/ the 2024 campaign).  A great read.

 

Colbert Looks At Trump's Tariff Chaos

 

In case you missed it, in his monologue last night, Stephen Colbert looked at the Malignant Fascist's chaotic tariff rollout, a.k.a "Liberation Day," his unlawful thoughts about a third term, the visit to Greenland by couch lover JD Vance and more. He also notes a change in the "MAGA" brand. 

Wisconsin And Florida Vote Today

 

Today is a critical election day in Wisconsin and Florida.  Electoral-vote sums up the stakes.

Wisconsin (statewide)

The highest-profile and most important election is for a 10-year term on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Justice Ann Walsh Bradley decided not to run for a fourth term, leaving the Court divided between three liberal justices and three conservatives. The race is nominally nonpartisan, but Democrats are supporting Dane County Judge Susan Crawford and Republicans are supporting former state AG Brad Schimel. Crawford has been endorsed by Barack Obama; Schimel has been endorsed by Donald Trump. Elon Musk has poured over $20 million into the race. That shows you how nonpartisan it really is, but Crawford has also raised plenty of grassroots money.

Wisconsin was the closest swing state last November, with Trump beating Kamala Harris by 0.86%. This is the first time since Inauguration Day that voters statewide in a swing state will get a chance to vote. Virtually everyone is going to interpret the results as a proxy vote on the Musk/Trump administration, not about which judge is better. If Crawford wins in a landslide, as did Janet Protasiewicz in 2023, it will be a black eye for Trump and especially for Musk since his strategy of trying to buy the election will have failed.

Oh, in addition to buying TV ads, Musk is also trying to buy data about potential Republican voters to get them to the polls tomorrow. Any registered Wisconsin voter who signs his petition against activist judges can get $100. In addition, Musk planned to give two lucky signers a $1 million prize at a rally yesterday. Wisconsin AG Josh Kaul (D) said that was an illegal lottery and sued to stop it. Last Friday, Columbia County Circuit Judge Andrew Voight rejected Kaul's suit, but Kaul appealed it. The appeals court turned him down and Musk duly handed out checks for $1 million to people who signed up for his apparently-not-illegal lottery. Expect Musk to use this tactic in every election important to him in the future.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court is expected to get cases on abortion, gerrymandering, unions, and election rules this year or next, making it crucial who wins this seat for the future of Wisconsin...

There are also other local races in Wisconsin that are important and will show whether there's energy and momentum on the Democratic side, which Electoral-vote describes at the link. Electoral-vote continues:

Florida (FL-01 and FL-06)

Now on to Florida, where two House seats are at stake. The House is currently 218R, 213D, with four vacancies—two in deep-blue districts and two in deep-red districts. FL-01 is Matt Gaetz's old seat at the edge of the panhandle, just south of Alabama and politically indistinguishable from it. The district elected Gaetz, after all. In 2024, Gaetz beat Gay Valimont by 22 points, in line with the R+19 PVI. She is running again, this time against the state's CFO Jimmy Patronis. Valimont's full name is Jennifer Gay Valimont. We are slightly surprised, given today's political climate, that she is not running as Jennifer (or Jen or Jenny) Valimont. She was born in 1973, before "gay" was a widely used word.

The district is home to both Naval Air Station Pensacola and Eglin Air Force Base and is one of the most Republican districts in the state. All four counties have voted Republican in presidential elections for 65 years, except for 1968, when all four went for George Wallace. We did mention Alabama, didn't we? Trump got 68% of the vote in the district last year. An upset here would be earthshaking, but if Valimont can keep Patronis' win to single digits, that would also send a message.

The other race is in FL-06, Mike Waltz' safe seat that he foolishly gave up to become NSA, probably for 2-3 months. It is on the Atlantic Coast and includes Daytona Beach. Republicans have carried all six counties in the past four presidential elections. The PVI is only R+14, but Waltz overperformed the fundamentals, beating Democrat James Stockton by 33 points in November. Nevertheless, a recent poll has teacher Josh Weil (D) only 3 points behind state Sen. Randy Fine (R). If Fine wins by only 3 points, that would be an earthquake, given the nature of the district and its past voting pattern. Democrats across the country have poured millions of dollars into Weil's race and he has outspent Fine 10:1. And remember, special elections are low-turnout wonky affairs.

These are important markers for where we are two months into the dystopian Trump/Musk regime.  Your vote is your voice, so Wisconsinites and Floridians, please exercise it.

(Illustration: Newsweek/Getty)

"Hands Off! National Day Of Action" On Saturday

 

A broad spectrum of over 150 national and local organizations are partnering in this Saturday's  "Hands Off! National Day of Action," which promises to be the largest anti- Trump mobilization since the "Women's March" in January 2017. You can find an event in your area by going here.  You can register if you want, or just show up.  But, show up, please.