I think it’s funny that the reporter felt the need to call them “import taxes” instead of “tariffs.” They seem to think that readers are too dumb to know what tariffs are. They may be right.
Speaking of dumb, tariffs are dumb. Yes, I expected Trump to follow through on his promise to implement tariffs and I still voted for him for other reasons, but tariffs are dumb economic policy.
US President Donald Trump has announced new import taxes of 25% on cars and car parts coming into the US in a move that threatens to widen the global trade war.
Trump said the latest tariffs would come into effect on 2 April, with charges on businesses importing vehicles starting the next day. Charges on parts are set to start in May or later.
The president claimed the measure would lead to “tremendous growth” for the car industry, promising it would spur jobs and investment in the US.
But analysts have said the move is likely to lead to the temporary shutdown of significant car production in the US, increase prices, and strain relations with allies.
The latest look at Gov. Tony Evers’ budget puts a price tag on just how much the governor hopes to get out of tax and fee increases, as well as new “collections” from the state.
The Legislative Fiscal Bureau released the report Monday.
“In summary, the changes included in the Governor’s budget would increase net taxes by $2,223,493,200, and would increase net fees by $356,301,800,” the LFB wrote. “In addition, it is estimated that measures…to enhance the collection of current taxes would generate an additional $189,420,400.”
“Gov. Evers told all of us during his budget address in February that he was going to cut taxes. Yet, about a month later, we are now finding out the actual truth: Gov. Evers’ budget proposal is irresponsible and unsustainable,” Sen. Patrick Testin, R-Stevens Point, said on Monday. “The good news is Legislative Republicans won’t let that happen and will work hard to craft a fiscally-responsible budget that both addresses our state’s priorities and delivers meaningful tax relief.”
LFB reported that Gov. Evers is proposing 14 different tax increases, and 28 proposed tax decreases.
It’s good to see a bit of anti-Hamas activity in the heart of Gaza. That’s brave.
Hundreds of people have taken part in the largest anti-Hamas protest in Gaza since the war with Israel began, taking to the streets to demand the group step down from power.
Masked Hamas militants, some armed with guns and others carrying batons, intervened and forcibly dispersed the protesters, assaulting several of them.
Videos shared widely on social media by activists typically critical of Hamas showed young men marching through the streets of Beit Lahia, northern Gaza on Tuesday, chanting “out, out, out, Hamas out”.
Pro-Hamas supporters defended the group, downplayed the significance of the demonstrations and accused the participants of being traitors. Hamas is yet to comment.
I have not been willing to send my DNA to someone to satiate my curiosity for exactly this reason. The DNA of millions of people is this company’s most valuable asset. They are going to sell that asset to pay the bills (if they haven’t already been doing so). Insurance companies, Big Pharma, and any number of other firms will pay for that data. Furthermore, they can sell it more than once. No thanks. I don’t need to know that I’m 27% Irish.
Genetic testing company 23andMe announced on Sunday that it has filed for bankruptcy due to low demand for its ancestry kits and after a 2023 data breach damaged its reputation.
The company, which has over 15 million customers worldwide, said it voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to “facilitate a sale process to maximize the value of its business.” 23andMe is seeking authorization from a bankruptcy court in Missouri to “sell substantially all of its assets.”
The company’s market value peaked at almost $6 billion after it went public in 2021, but 23andMe reported a 7% decline in revenue and losses of $174 million in the first nine months of its current fiscal year.
South Korean conglomerate Hyundai will announce a $20 billion investment in U.S. onshoring that includes a $5 billion steel plant in Louisiana, according to people familiar with the plans.
The plant is set to hire roughly 1,500 employees and will produce next-generation steel that will be used by Hyundai’s two U.S. auto plants to manufacture electric vehicles. The investment is expected to be announced Monday at the White House by President Donald Trump, Hyundai Chairman Euisun Chung and Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry.
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funds from using them on certain candy and sugary drinks.
The bill directs the secretary of the Kansas Department of Children and Families to request a waiver from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the program at the federal level, to exclude candy and soft drinks from SNAP benefits.
While we see this push coming from states (I think ten are moving the way of Kansas at the moment), we see a push at the federal level too. We also see an incredible push back.
It is beyond dispute that soda and candy are terrible for you. They are garbage calories that make you fat and sick. It is also beyond dispute that a free people should have the right to consume whatever they want – even if it is bad for you. We drink soda and eat candy because they are yummy, and that’s reason enough for a free people.
Opponents of restricting people from using their welfare to pay for soda and candy are arguing that it’s a freedom issue. We don’t want the government telling us what we can and cannot eat. Of course, this is the argument, but it is not the reason. Big Soda and Big Candy made a lot – A LOT – of money off of welfare recipients and they have orchestrated a well-funded campaign to preserve their revenue from the taxpayers.
But let’s take their argument at face value. First, this is not a case of government telling people what they can or cannot eat. This is a case of government telling people what taxpayers are willing or unwilling to pay for. If we ban the use of welfare for soda and candy, every welfare recipient is still free to purchase and consume those items just like people who are not receiving welfare. The difference is that they must now use their own money to buy it instead of the taxpayers’ money.
Second, the government already makes these distinctions. Today, welfare recipients may not spend their SNAP money on booze, fast food, cigarettes, vitamins, supplements, and any number of other things. This change would just add a couple of food categories to the list. I also think that we should add some things to the list of approved items. For example, grocery stores now offer many healthy prepared meal options that are prohibited. We should add those to the acceptable list. We still don’t want welfare to be used to buy dinner at Applebee’s or McDonald’s, but getting a rotisserie chicken or prepared meals from the grocery store should be fine.
The supporting argument for removing soda and candy from the acceptable list is twofold. First, they are terrible for you. Absolutely terrible. Taxpayers should not be paying for people to eat crap or feed their kids crap. It is impractical to prohibit all bad food and we don’t want the government to spend resources weighing in on the relative healthiness of eating habits from vegan to carnivore, but banning an entire category like soda is easy and helpful. Especially since the taxpayers also pay for the healthcare of many welfare recipients, the taxpayers have a moral and financial interest in helping them eat healthier.
Second, on principle, being on welfare shouldn’t be comfortable. We are a generous people and provide a robust safety net for those who fall on hard times and those who need a hand up. But that safety net is supposed to be temporary as people get on their own feet. We have spent a couple of generations destigmatizing welfare and ensuring that welfare recipients can enjoy a life as comfortable as those who are paying their own way. The result has been the advent of generational welfare families and a culture that sucks the productivity and dignity out of entire communities. To reverse this rot, we must make welfare uncomfortable again. People should WANT to work their way off of welfare so that they can enjoy the fruits of their own labor. People SHOULD feel some shame for living off the largesse of their neighbors instead of paying their own way. Being on welfare should not be seen as a way of life, yet that is exactly what it has become. Banning soda and candy would be a very small step toward reinvigorating our culture back to one of proud independence and self-reliance.
Officials at the Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department are anticipating tax revenue to drop more than 10% by April 15 compared with last year, the Washington Post reported Saturday, citing three people with knowledge of the situation.
The loss of tax receipts is expected as more individuals and businesses don’t file taxes or attempt to avoid paying balances owed to the IRS. The amount of lost federal revenue could top $500 billion, the paper said.
Officials said the prediction is directly linked to shifting taxpayer behavior and President Donald Trump’s cuts at the IRS, the Washington Post said.
Thousands are expected to lose their jobs at the agency as part of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency spending cuts. Experts have warned that the cuts during tax season could materially impact filers.
The Treasury Department told the paper the story was “sensational and baseless” and said the anonymous sources “should be dismissed out of hand.”
Do you notice the old pattern? Some anonymous “officials” feed this story to the Washington Post. The paper runs with it. Officials on record deny the story. The paper runs with it anyway without citing the source. We saw this over and over again during Trump’s first term. Don’t fall for it. If the sources aren’t named, it’s just leftist propaganda.
This is smart. One of the more frustrating things about the Biden Administration was when they would throw our BS economic stats as a counterargument to people sharing their economic woes.
The Treasury Secretary has candidly admitted that the GDP numbers that dominated the previous administration’s economic approach are not accurate.
[…]
When asked point-blank whether he believed that GDP numbers and nonfarm payrolls were accurate on the All-In podcast last week, Bessent replied: ‘No. They’re subject to big revisions over time.
‘I thought one of the big mistakes of the Biden administration was that they went with the numbers and not what the American people were feeling.’
The Treasury Secretary said the economic concerns of the public were dismissed as merely a ‘vibe-cession’ and that Biden told them, ‘you don’t know how good you’ve got it.’
Instead, Bessent said the Trump administration was going to ‘have respect for how [the public] feel and then we need to go back and look at what is causing this anxiety.’
[…]
Podcast co-host Palihapitiya praised Trump’s team for having a ‘better beat on the fact that this data is not as reliable as other administrations would say they were in order to do whatever it is they wanted to do anyway.’
Bessent agreed with the interviewer, saying that the Trump White House would not use data to justify their actions and instead listen to Americans when they express anxiety or financial hurt.
by Owen | 0826, 22 Mar 2525 | Politics | 4 Comments
Good. I mean, really, Hillary hasn’t been in office for 13 years. What possible value is it to the nation for her to have security clearance? And on the flip side, how much damage could she do to an administration led by a person she deeply, and vocally, hates?
“I have determined that it is no longer in the national interest for the following individuals to access classified information,” Trump wrote.
He went on to name a list of 15 opponents and Biden-era officials, including Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, former Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who prosecuted Trump for fraud, as well as former president Biden’s entire family.
It is unclear what formal security clearance was possessed by some of the figures named in the memo. Trump had already announced his intention to rescind security clearance for Biden in February, and National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard said on March 10 that she had revoked access for Blinken, James and others per Trump’s directive.
Barring Biden from intelligence briefings is a tit-for-tat move after Biden banned Trump from accessing classified documents in 2021, arguing he could not be trusted because of his “erratic behavior.”
In the past, former presidents have been briefed on certain matters and allowed access to sensitive information as a courtesy, though they often have no formal security clearance.
Trump said in his memo Friday that he would also “direct all executive department and agency heads to revoke unescorted access to secure United States Government facilities from these individuals.”
WASHINGTON — Former President Joe Biden has told some Democratic leaders he’ll raise funds, campaign and do anything else necessary for Democrats to recover lost ground as the Trump administration rolls back programs the party helped design, according to people close to him.
Biden privately met last month with the new Democratic National Committee chairman, Ken Martin, and offered to help as the party struggles to regain its viability amid polling that shows its popularity has been sinking, the people said.
So far, Biden’s overture seems to have fallen flat. Democrats find themselves adrift, casting about for a compelling messenger.
MIAMI (AP) — In Hialeah, Florida, a city that’s 95% Hispanic, only three residents showed up at a recent city council meeting to speak against a partnership with the federal government to enforce immigration laws.
The police departments in Hialeah, where three out of four people were born abroad, and Coral Gables, with a majority of Hispanics mostly of Cuban descent, have entered into agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement with very little visible pushback.
President Donald Trump’s doubling of immigration arrests and ramping up of deportations could have a disproportionate impact on South Florida, home to some of the nation’s largest communities of Cubans, Venezuelans and other Latin Americans. But reaction here to Trump’s crackdown has been far more muted than during his first term, reflecting both the rightward shift of Latino voters and a belief among some that restrictive border measures are necessary.
“I understand some people feel a little bit betrayed because most of us voted him in,” said Frank Ayllon, a 41-year-old sales representative from Miami. “I feel like a lot of these people are taking it very personal. And it’s not personal. It’s just that you’ve got to understand that this has been an open border for many years.”
By any objective measure, the federal Department of Education has been an utter failure. Since its creation, educational outcomes have steadily declined while spending has exploded on administration and useless distractions. When something isn’t working, do something different. People who actually care about education understand this. People who care about government jobs never cared about education. We need Congress to act, but this is a good and necessary step. Huzzah, President Trump.
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive orderdirecting officials to begin dismantling the Department of Education, a promise he made on the 2024 campaign trail.
“We’re going to shut it down as quickly as possible,” Trump said after signing the order on Thursday. “It’s doing us no good.”
Trump has long called for the department to be axed, a cherished goal of some conservatives, but completely shutting it would require an act of Congress, which is unlikely.
The move is already facing legal challenges from those seeking to block the agency’s closure as well as sweeping cuts to its staff announced last week.
“Last night I signed an agreement with the General Services Administration and DOGE representatives to assist us in identifying and achieving further efficiencies,” DeJoy said. “This is an effort aligned with our efforts, as while we have accomplished a great deal, there is much more to be done. We are happy to have others assist us in our worthwhile cause.”
The postmaster general said his agency plans to reduce its workforce by 10,000 workers within the next month through a voluntary early retirement program.
DeJoy said the DOGE team asked about the big problems facing the Postal Service. He cited various issues including miscalculations and mismanagement over its retirement plans that have several billion dollars of “burdensome” funds, mismanagement of its Workers’ Compensation Program, unfunded mandates as a result of legislation that require the service to participate in “costly activities,” and “burdensome regulatory requirements” that restrict normal practices.
The Senate passed a House-approved government funding bill that averts a government shutdown that was set to be triggered at the end of the day Friday.
The Senate voted 54 to 46 to pass the bill. The approval of the bill follows several Democrats voting with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to keep the funding bill moving forward despite blowback from other members of their party.
Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen voted in favor of the bill. All other Democrats voted against it.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., was on the only Republican to cast a vote against the bill.
Mark Carney, an economist and political newcomer, has been sworn in as Canada’s new prime minister and delivered a speech vowing to “never” become a part of the United States.
He takes office on Friday just days after being elected leader of the governing Liberal Party and amid an ongoing trade war with US President Donald Trump.
“We know that by building together, we can give ourselves far more than anyone else can take away,” he said remarks after the ceremony.
Serendipitously, I spent most of this week in Quebec and the conversation turned to politics a few times. Anecdotally, they hate Trump, are offended by his 51st state comments, and worried about tariffs. What was fascinating to me was how their entire political dialogue was about American politics. I even saw a political commercial on television where the attack ad accused some Canadian politician of being too tight with Trump. The visual was of a faceless guy erasing the border.
I thought of that meme with Don Draper saying, “I don’t think of you at all.” As an American, I can’t cite a single instance where my vote was influenced by what some other foreign leader said. I don’t care. I’m interested in how our elected leaders will respond to what foreign leaders say and do, but there’s nothing the PM of Canada could say that would change my vote for school board – much less president. But the entire political landscape in Canada shifts based on what’s happening in America. It’s fascinating.
Mahmoud Khalil was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at Columbia University over the weekend, despite having a green card, his attorney told ABC News, sparking an outcry from civil rights groups. His attorneys subsequently filed a habeas corpus petition challenging his arrest.
“To preserve the Court’s jurisdiction pending a ruling on the petition, Petitioner shall not be removed from the United States unless and until the Court orders otherwise,” Judge Jesse Furman wrote in a notice ordering a conference for Wednesday morning in the case.
[…]
Khalil’s wife, who is eight months pregnant, released a statement Monday, saying, “For everyone reading this, I urge you to see Mahmoud through my eyes as a loving husband and the future father to our baby. I need your help to bring Mahmoud home, so he is here beside me, holding my hand in the delivery room as we welcome our first child into this world. Please release Mahmoud Now.”
Perhaps he should have been working, schooling, and tending to his family instead of using his time and energy to support terror.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday the Trump administration had finished its six-week purge of programs of the six-decade-old U.S. Agency for International Development and he would move the 18% of aid and development programs that survived under the State Department.
Rubio made the announcement in a post on X, in one of his relatively few public comments on what has been a historic shift away from U.S. foreign aid and development, executed by Trump political appointees at State and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency teams.
Rubio thanked DOGE and “our hardworking staff who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform” in foreign aid.
In another final step in the breakup of USAID, the Trump administration on Monday gave USAID staffers abroad until April 6 to move back to the United States if they want to do so on the government’s tab, according to a USAID email sent to staffers and seen by The Associated Press. Staffers say the deadline gives them scant time to pull children from school, sell homes or break leases, and, for many, find somewhere to live after years away from the United States.
The rout extended a miserable month for markets that has seen all three major indexes wipe out their gains since the US presidential election in November.
The widespread selloff was mostly driven by anxiety about the impact of Trump’s tariffs. In an interview that aired Sunday, Trump said the US economy would see “a period of transition” and refused to rule out a recession.
When asked on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo” if he was expecting a recession this year, Trump said “I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we’re doing is very big.”
The classic definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of GDP contraction. By that definition, we’ve had two recessions in the last five years.
The pandemic recession is obvious. But remember that recession in 2022 that everyone ignored? We were told that it wasn’t really a recession because look at all of these other stats blah blah blah. But it was a recession and by ignoring it, we did not take corrective action.
Since then (and before), we have been propping up our GDP with insane levels of government spending. All of that spending has been fueled by debt. It is unsustainable.
For those of us in the private sector, I don’t think we ever really recovered from the 2022 recession. Several sectors of our economy have continued to struggle and have been contracting. Inflation and government spending have masked it, but it’s real.
What I hope we will see now is restraint in government spending and getting inflation under control. Those things will both uncover the already weak spots in our economy and trigger a recession in the parts being propped up by government spending (think renewable energy, real estate, healthcare, education, higher ed, etc).
This will hurt, but it is also necessary. A capitalist economy is not meant to never contract. It must, in fact, do so in order to force capital out of inflated parts of the economy and into more productive parts. The boom-and-bust cycle is not a bug of a healthy economy. It is a feature.
Furthermore, if we don’t get government spending (funded by debt) under control, we risk completely devaluing our currency and trigger nation-killing hyperinflation. That is far, far worse than a recession.
Gird your loins, folks. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
The majority of official documents signed by President Joe Biden allegedly used the same autopen signature, reinvigorating concerns over the former president’s mental acuity and if he “actually ordered the signature of relevant legal documents,” a report published by an arm of the Heritage Foundation found.
“WHOEVER CONTROLLED THE AUTOPEN CONTROLLED THE PRESIDENCY,” the Oversight Project, which is an initiative within the conservative Heritage Foundation that investigates the government to bolster transparency, posted to X on Thursday.
“We gathered every document we could find with Biden’s signature over the course of his presidency. All used the same autopen signature except for the announcement that the former President was dropping out of the race last year. Here is the autopen signature,” the group claimed on X, accompanied by photo examples.
It is frustrating that nothing will be done. This is the kind of the thing that goes to the very heart of our system of government. If we are to be a self-governing people, then we must know that the people whom we elect are the ones making the decisions. Do we know that Joe Biden was actually making decisions and exercising the power of the presidency? Or was someone else – someone who was never elected – acting as our president? If the people we elect are not in charge, then we do not have a self-governing Republic. THAT is why we must know the truth of Biden’s actions, or inactions, and have procedures in place to ensure that someone else cannot act as our president.
A UK-based monitor said 830 civilians were killed in “massacres” targeting Alawites on the west coast on Friday and Saturday.
The BBC has been unable to independently verify the death toll of the violence, which is believed to be the worst since the fall of the Assad regime.
In a speech broadcast on national TV and posted on social media, Sharaa, whose rebel movement toppled Bashar al-Assad in December, also promised to hunt down Assad loyalists.
The fighting has also killed 231 members of the security forces and 250 pro-Assad fighters, according to the monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), taking the overall death toll to 1,311.
“Today, as we stand at this critical moment, we find ourselves facing a new danger – attempts by remnants of the former regime and their foreign backers to incite new strife and drag our country into a civil war, aiming to divide it and destroy its unity and stability,” the interim president said on Sunday.
“We affirm that we will hold accountable, firmly and without leniency, anyone who is involved in the bloodshed of civilians or harming our people, who overstepped the powers of the state or exploits authority to achieve his own ends,” Sharaa added in the video speech, posted by state news agency Sana.
My guess is – not informed by events in Syria but informed by what history teaches us – is that whatever violence may have been perpetrated by Assad loyalists, if any, is being used as an excuse by the new regime to liquidate opponents – both political and religious.
What’s really interesting is that Russia has long been a supporter of Syria and uses their influence there as a counterweight to the US’ influence in the region. But Russia has been largely silent supporting neither the Assad forces nor the new regime. It speak to how the Ukrainian war has drained Russia’s ability to intervene in other places in the world.
