Sorting Through Trade, Tariffs, Taxes, and Trump on SiriusXM Insight from 12-1 p.m. ET

Trade attorney Scott Lincicome and The Art of Being Free author James Poulos join Matt Welch on The Dean Obeidallah Show

Today at noon eastern I am once again guest-hosting The Dean Obeidallah Show on SiriusXM Insight, channel 121, and we will be engaging in some mixture between TGIF and ICBIOBOW (I Can't Believe it's Only Been One Week). In the second half of the program I will be joined by the invaluable trade attorney/commentator Scott Lincicome, to sort through the confusing bluster surrounding Donald Trump's feud with Mexico, his plans for a 20 percent "border tax," and what other euphemisms for tariff we can expect.

And for the duration of the show I'll be joined by the provocative and original thinker/doer James Poulos, author of the brand new The Art of Being Free: How Alexis de Tocqueville Can Save Us from Ourselves. We shall certainly apply his insights to the dawning Age of Trump. Please call the program any time (at least while I'm on it), at 1-877-974-7487.

Poulos two weeks ago was interviewed by Nick Gillespie for the Reason podcast. Listen to that below:

Comments

[Hamster of Doom]

Scott Lincicome is funny as hell.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Hell doesn't seem like it should be funny at all.

[Hamster of Doom]

I was merely being emphatic in my preferred colloquialisms.

[Swiss Servator]

It is when other people are in it?

[MarkLastname]

Neither is shit, but people seem to like saying funny as shit too.

[The Fusionist]

I'm totally psyched, I want to see Reason's *What We Saw At the March For Life* video.

[John Titor]

It's just a two hour tape of the camera cap in the AV closet.

[Crusty Juggler - #2]

Eddo, the more you complain, the more likely they are to give it the coverage you think it deserves.

[Crusty Juggler - #2]

However, I do hope you contacted Gillespie and others directly to advocate for some coverage of this march, because I doubt randomly complaining in the comments is going to help your cause.

[Swiss Servator]

"I doubt randomly complaining in the comments is going to help your cause"

Aw, crap....there goes my only means of pushing for changes around here. 🙁

[GILMORE?]

OT =

Putin Legalizes Wifebeating
Trump Applauds, Shows Solidarity By Kicking Melania in the Groin

[Brochetta(MEDIOCRE_NEGRO)ward]

"This bill would establish violence as a norm of conduct," Communist lawmaker Yuri Sinelshchikov said during the debate.

The irony...it burns.

[Brochetta(MEDIOCRE_NEGRO)ward]

Political scientist Jesse Richman of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, has worked with colleagues to produce groundbreaking research on noncitizen voting, and this week he posted a blog in response to Mr. Trump's assertion.

Washington Post dubs it a "shock study." Because they had been making very clear now for a while that the consensus was in, and that there was absolutely no proof - none of any kind - that voter fraud was occurring. It was settled science.

[wareagle]

I find this sort of "shiny tweet" story fascinating. It is utterly meaningless but the media pack will spend the next three days chasing its collective tail over it.

The press will never be Trump's lap dog but, my god, he is making it his bitch. And the press is going along with it.

[Brochetta(MEDIOCRE_NEGRO)ward]

I don't know how much of anything with Trump is intentional. I fully view him as an egomaniacal buffoon who only believes in power, money, and grabbing pussy. I think he's still a NY real estate guy at heart who thinks no publicity is bad publicity and who gets a boner every morning watching the talking heads discuss him. I think it's just a natural ability he possesses to work people and the media, and much of it is second nature. He's an idiot savant of fucking with the media.

It is, in short, the Howard Stern effect applied to politics. And it works just as well as it did morning radio.

So I'm some where in between the two camps on this. I laugh at the people who get worked up over it (speaking of libertarians and conservatives here - progs I just expect it) because they buy into the notion that politicians are in some way respectable and that 'governing' is serious business. And I laugh equally at those who make Donald fucking Trump out to be some sort of genius.

[wareagle]

The tweets are totally intentional. Every time one pops out, the pack fixates on it. It creates a distraction. Compare the amount of coverage given something like "alternative facts" vs that given the flurry of EOs that came out. I'm not in the "he's a genius" camp but good lord he trolls the shit out of these folks. And they let him.

[MarkLastname]

Of course they do. When you're a star they let you do it.

[Deven]

I'm not saying that Trump didn't stumble upon the idea due to his buffoonery.

But thinking that he doesn't understand it and isn't playing it to his advantage is to ignore all evidence to the contrary. You can call it genius or not. Doesn't matter. He follows a pretty strict set of rules when it comes to the media.

He never says what they want him to say. No one in his administration will say what they want them to say.
He consistently gets them fired up over things the public doesn't really care about, just leftist lunatics.
He never apologizes for any of it.
Meanwhile, as they are chasing their tails on whatever garbage falls out of his mouth, he does what he wants to do.

[mashed potatoes]

"and what other euphemisms for tariff we can expect." just call it regulations to make businesses pay their fair share.

But really, EVERY tax and regulation is paid for by "we the people" as I have been hearing so much from my friends on the left about this tariff.

It is good that everyone is pushing back on making goods produced in mexico artificially more expensive with this policy, but, hey, lets stop making goods produced in the US artificially more expensive with EVERY OTHER GOVERNMENT POLICY.

This is a perfect opportunity. The left themselves is providing the rhetoric to hit them back with for every other one of their economic ideas.

[GILMORE?]

The left themselves is providing the rhetoric to hit them back with for every other one of their economic ideas.

This presumes they care about intellectual consistency.

I've heard them contradict themselves in the same sentence, and when having it pointed out to them, shug and say that "the world is complex"

because high taxes will stop people from smoking, but high labor costs (via minimum wages) do nothing but create more spending.

[thom]

I wish they would just shrug their shoulders and tell me the world is complex.

More likely you'll hear: "you think that corporations should be allowed to kill people with cigarettes and poor people shouldn't be paid a living wage? It's bad people like you that make the world such a horrible place."

[Hamster of Doom]

OH MY GOD WOULD YOU PEOPLE WRITE SOMETHING INTERESTING. I'll take a Super Bowl article, and I'll be grateful.

So, the economy is doing some stuff. Or not.

"The U.S. economy was in decent, if unspectacular, shape at the end of 2016," said Gus Faucher, senior economist at PNC Financial Services.

Ha. Hahaha. Think of all the churn, all the leverage, the billions and billions and billions of dollars shoveled around by the government to keep everything running smoothly quiet until the next election is over. All the bureaucrats devoting their life's work and the measure of their days in massaging, primping, molding and prettying the economy. The best they can get is "decent, if unspectacular".

Haha, and that's with government math, no telling what the real math says.

Man, are we ever in for it.

[esteve7]

yup, the economy has never been that great over the whole Obama presidency, but many aspects were hidden. Especially on my derpbook page, people site the unemployment number like gospel, but ignore the labor force participation rate.

Now that the media's been holding back the dam for the Democrats, they are going to let it loose on Trump. Remember Reagan's first 2 years?

[GILMORE?]

people site the unemployment number like gospel, but ignore the labor force participation rate.

I don't think the participation rate is much better. a lot of that just reflects the population getting older,

I think the U6 # is a more-honest reflection of "near term" economic conditions compared to the U3

i think the problem w/ U6 is that the data is too short to provide any basis for what's 'normal'. we've become too accustomed to the idea of 'low single digits' = healthy, 'high single digits' = unhealthy.

[MarkLastname]

I'm too lazy to find the paper, but I believe some claimed to find that the population getting older couldn't explain the majority of the declining labor force participation. IOW, participation was declining across age groups.

You can google the article: "declining civilian labor force participation: an aging population or a weak economy?"

[Swiss Servator]

Taxes and tariffs and Trump...oh my!

*starts walking faster*

[Not a True MJG]

That's a lazy euphemism.

[cavalier973]

How about, "stuffs straw into a scarecrow"?

Or, "applies oil to the tin man"?

[Swiss Servator]

Those aren't subtle at all!!!!

[Not a True MJG]

Hmm, I just checked WeThe5thColumn.net, and I'm afraid whoever is writing the episode synopses may have snapped. Will there soon be another body stuffed in the walls of Welch's brownstone?

[GILMORE?]

I just checked WeThe5thColumn.net

no you didn't

[Not a True MJG]

If you know a better place to get "We The Fifth" episodes, I'd like to hear it!