Originally published at: Cult Of Personality Has Strict Rules - TPM – Talking Points Memo
Kathleen Sgamma unceremoniously withdrew herself as President Trump’s nominee to run the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management on Thursday just before her confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Sgamma is the director of Western Energy Alliance, a Denver-based oil and gas trade group made up of over 300…
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Wow, we can certainly trust these people to tell truth to power.
From the article: 'America’s largest newspaper chain, Gannett, will no longer publish demographic and diversity data about its workforce, and has revamped its corporate site to remove mentions of diversity.
'The announcement was made in a company town hall meeting on Wednesday afternoon. A spokesperson told me the company is “adapting to the evolving regulatory environment,” and, in a follow-up email when I asked for clarification, referred me to Trump’s January 22 executive order eliminating DEI initiatives in federal agencies and calling for an end to “private sector DEI discrimination.”
‘Gannett did not specify whether the Trump administration had contacted anyone at the company, or asked them to make changes.’
They’ll be urging their reporters to ask tough questions and supporting them when the regime comes at them. They’ll be telling plain truths and avoiding bothsiderisms and sanewashing. Yesiree…
“No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.”
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“Cult of Personality Has Strict Rules”
Can we safely call it the United States with Autocracy now?
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But we in it shall be remember’d;
If Shakespeare were alive today:
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in America now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Insurrection day.
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Trump Is Stupid, Erratic and Weak
Paul Krugman from Paul Krugman
To: me · Thu, Apr 10 at 5:29 AM
Message Body
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Trump Is Stupid, Erratic and Weak
The disaster of Trumponomics continues
Paul Krugman
Apr 10 
Source: USITC and author’s estimate
Live shot of Donald Trump setting tariffs:
And here’s what happened yesterday:
Anyone sounding the all-clear on tariffs, or Trump economic policy in general, should be kept away from sharp objects and banned from operating heavy machinery. We’re in a hardly better place than we were before Donald Trump announced a tariff pause (in a Truth Social post, of course.) In fact, we may be in a worse place.
Let me make four points about Trump’s post-pause tariff regime.
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Even the post-pause tariff rates represent a huge protectionist shock
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Destructive uncertainty about future policy has increased
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We’re still at risk of a major financial crisis
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The world now knows that Trump is weak as well as erratic
Still a huge protectionist shock
Yesterday Trump announced that he wasn’t going to impose all those tariffs he announced last week after all. Instead, he’s putting a 10 percent tariff on everyone, and 125 percent on China.
Question of the day: Does the 10 percent rate still apply to the penguins of the Heard and McDonald islands?
Anyway, this new announcement still sets tariffs at a much higher level than they were before Trump took office, indeed higher than he suggested during the campaign. For example, during the campaign researchers at the Peterson Institute for International Economics constructed a model assuming Trump implemented a 10 percent tariffs across the board and 60 percent on China. The researchers concluded that this regime would impose a nasty shock on the US economy. Now we are facing a tariffs of more than twice that level against China as well as 10 percent on all other countries.
How high are overall tariffs after the “pause” was announced?
That’s actually a tricky question. China accounted for 13 percent of U.S. imports in 2024, and if you apply the newly announced rates to 2024 imports you come up with an average rate of 24.95 — higher than before the pause. Incredibly high tariff rates on China will, however, lead to lower imports from China, so a calculation based on 2024 trade is problematic.
However, not importing from China is also very costly: if we no longer import a good from China we must either shift to other, more expensive suppliers or the good simply disappears from the shelves. In the chart at the top of this post I’ve made an estimate of the “effective” tariff rate post-pause. The effective tariff takes into account both direct and indirect costs, and reflects the increase in the cost of living imposed by the tariff. With a 125% tariff on Chinese imports and a 10% tariff on all other imports, I arrive at an effective tariff rate that is slightly below the Smoot-Hawley level of 1930. But this still represents a huge jump in tariffs in a US economy that now imports three times as much as it did in 1930. Trump’s post-pause tariff regime remains the biggest trade shock in U.S., and I think world history.
It’s the uncertainty, stupid
Like many other observers, I’ve been arguing that uncertainty about Trump’s policies is as big a drag on the economy as the policies themselves. Before the Rose Garden announcement, I warned that it wouldn’t be the end of the story:
Trump may impose further tariffs, or slash them as suddenly as he raised them, depending on who spoke to him last. L’Etat, c’est Trump.
This kind of uncertainty is paralyzing for businesses, who are realizing that any kind of long-term commitment can turn out to have been a disastrous mistake. Build a plant that depends on imported parts, and Trump may cut you off at the knees with new tariffs. Build a plant that’s only profitable if tariffs stay in place, and Trump may cut you off at the knees by backing down.
Again, the point is that there really isn’t a MAGA economic philosophy, just whatever suits Trump’s fragile ego.
And so it has proved. So are things settled now? Hardly. The pause is for 90 days. Then what happens? Nobody, Trump included, has the faintest idea. If you imagine that the U.S. can negotiate “tailored” tariff deals with the more than 75 countries Trump claims are seeking a deal in just three months, ask yourself, who’s supposed to be sorting out the details?
So if you were a business owner or executive, would you make any major investments or long-term commitments over the next few months? I wouldn’t.
Still a risk of financial crisis
Yesterday I noted that financial markets were showing the telltale signs of an incipient financial crisis. I looked mainly at the breakeven inflation rate, but many other indicators were also flashing yellow. Even yields on long-term federal bonds, normally a safe haven in troubled times, were sounding a warning.
The inimitable Nathan Tankus has a new post explaining why we were and continue to be vulnerable to a new crisis. He explains why the Rose Garden announcement may have been a new tariff-induced “Lehman moment” for the financial system. He explains a lot of stuff that I didn’t know or had grasped only vaguely — in particular, how hedge funds have become key providers of liquidity, even in the Treasury market (via the “basis trade.”) So when hedge funds’ portfolios take a hit from erratic policy, this quickly creates system-wide stress.
I’m planning to write a primer about financial crises and how they happen this weekend.
The level of financial market stress declined somewhat yesterday, but the situation remains fraught. Trump’s next stupid policy move — and there will be more stupid moves — could quite easily tip us over the edge.
Above all, don’t take yesterday’s relief rally as a sign that the danger is behind us. Look at how the NASDAQ behaved after the original Lehman moment:
There were several big but short-lived stock rallies along the way to a huge decline. Assuming that yesterday’s surge was the end of the story requires ignoring both the fundamentals of erratic policy and the lessons of history.
Bullies are weak
The story of the tariffs so far — at least as other countries will see it — is that Trump announced extreme policies, insisted that he would persist with those policies no matter what, then beat an ignominious retreat. In other words, Trump is a typical bully, full of swagger and tough talk, who runs away at the first sign of adversity.
On tariffs, Trump’s cowardice and weakness may be a good thing. But what about everything else?|
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Vanna, may I have a vowel please?
Ms. Sgamma committed a huge act of disloyalty to the President, his Family and his militia by not supporting the January 6 Coup and armed attack on the Capitol to assassinate a disloyal Vice President and the Democratic Speaker of the House.
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It’s long past time to take the keys away from Grampaw. He’s repeatedly run the car into the ditch, and now he’s speeding down the wrong side of the highway, trying for a head-on collision with China.
All the while, he keeps maundering about what a big loser he was in 2025 (admittedly, not in his own eyes!) and abusing his power to persecute/prosecute anyone he thinks was “mean” to him.
Democrats might ought to get up a campaign to 25th Amendment him. Or just have him committed – can we do that?
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There. FIFY. It shows the actual intent of the bill. The 21st Centuary Grand Old Party has been taken over by a bunch of racist pigs h*ll bent on maintaining White Supremacy. Now it is no longer a false narrative.
It could be that the last election was about money, but not in the way most people think…Joe Biden really did grow the economy from the bottom up and the middle out…It’s not that Trump voters were mad at Biden, because he didn’t do enough about inflation. I think they were mad at him, because he did more than any president to expand the economic pie to include all those who are usually left behind, especially Black people…
https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/trump-tariffs-2671680129/
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It’s nice to see someone besides me use the word “maundering.” It’s an excellent word and has been coming in handy quite a lot lately.
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I fear their deadline-free “facilitation” may take years. But it’s still good to see they aren’t fully abandoning due process.
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Sgamma learned an important truth, if “truth” can be applied to anything related to Trump: You not only have to serve him (she was otherwise perfect for the job), but you can never, ever question anything he’s ever done. This is beyond a loyalty test; it’s the punishment of thought-crime even if it occurred in the past. Which raises the question of why JD Vance got a pass, and leads to a dim hope that his pass will be revoked.
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I’m hoping for the return of “dotard”, too. You can’t say too much that’s good about Kim Jung un, but when he’s right, he’s right.
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The damage won’t be fixed until Starlink and all of Musk’s devices have been removed from government systems and his servers destroyed. Removing trump will stop a quarter of the crazy, but Vance and Thiel and the Senate will make sure the country stays fascist.
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Vance has Thiel’s backing. He isn’t going anywhere.
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It would be great if more smart people took this kind of effort.
Given all the problems modern society faces, this is the time for knowledgeable people to step forward with what they know. For example, I read a lot more about how environmental decay will kill us, than I see about practical plans for reversing it.
Nobody’s got the answer. Naturally. Everybody’s got an opinion. Okay. That leaves us with an empty suggestion box.
I’m looking forward to this primer.
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If the SAVE Act gets passed then I predict there’s going to be a whole lot of women who will legally change their name back to their maiden name. I feel a bit guilty now, but back when my sister got divorced she asked me if she should change her last name back to her maiden name. My answer was no, and reason why is that she was know by her now ex-husband’s last name in field that she worked in for over 20 years. Plus she had two sons that were still in school. This same discussion happened when my mother and father got divorced.
So going forward women won’t change their last name when they get married. This should piss off the Christian conservatives to no end, so there’s that. I guess we’ll see Newton’s Third Law of Motion up close and personal.
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Bowing to power, but media fails in multiple ways and one of the most pernicious IMHO is purposeful density, refusing to acknowledge and report changes in oppression because they do not have the same form as previously. For example, when Biden called Georgia’s more restrictive voter law, “Jim Crow 2.0” a Washington Post editorial referred to it as “hyperbolic” and this was defended by editorial board members including Karen Tumulty who reportedly ‘punked’ colleague Jonathan Capeheart when he complained, arguing it would be an insult to those who suffered under Jim Crow; to a black man for cry’n out loud (Capeheart later resigned WaPo ed board membership).
But tone-deafness aside, the real giveaway was Tumulty reportedly saying she wouldn’t call someone a Nazi unless they were really a Nazi. Times change, the tactics of racists/fascists change with them, but the goal of the game is always the same and the failure to keep up is an editorial lapse that should lead to early retirement never mind the ethical and moral issues it raises.
You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “ — Lee Atwater, Reagan strategist (1984; The Nation)
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Since Kathleen Sgamma withdrew herself as the nominee for the head of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, who will replace her as the nominee? Cliven Bundy? One of those “wise use” wackos who want to plunder our public lands?
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Go back up to the top of this article and look at the photo of the four sorry-ass faces of the frowning white guys and try to figure out what is in store for that poor woman.
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