Open Thread

What’s on your mind?

Comments

[Stephen Lathrop]

A few days ago I heard a radio report which alleged that Trump's tariffs have been lucrative. So much so that if things continue as they have been, tariffs will spare the U.S. Treasury approximately $3 trillion in deficit spending over ten years. Good news? Maybe not.

The report also alleged that based on present practice, 90 percent of that extra taxation has fallen on American consumers. Worse, if court cases decide the tariffs were not legally applied, then importers may win refunds of their overpayments. If so, there will be no way to allocate any refunds to specific consumers who were charged tariff increments at the cash register. The result, in effect, would be a double loss for consumers. First in higher prices paid, next in paying for refunds to importers out of taxes.

[Commenter_XY]

lathrop, why hasn't inflation increased with the 'extra taxation'?

Price increases would increase inflation. Inflation has decreased YOY, and is way down from The Cauliflower.

How do you explain that?

Personally, I like cheaper gasoline, and cheaper durable goods.

[hobie]

The Cauliflower brought the Trump inflation rate of 7 down to 2.9, and Trump brought The Cauliflower's inflation rate of 2.9 down to 2.4

https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/

As everyone knows, in the modern era, every single Republican president has left us in a bad recession. So we shall see where we are in 2028.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

On this day in 1898, the battleship *Maine* was blown up by an explosion in Havana harbor in what was then the Spanish colony of Cuba.

https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/february-15

Also, on this day in 1879:

"...President [Rutherford B.] Hayes signed 'An act to relieve certain legal disabilities of women,' which read that 'any woman who shall have been a member of the bar of the highest court of any State or Territory or of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia for the space of three years, and shall have maintained a good standing before such court, and who shall be a person of good moral character, shall, on motion, and the production of such record, be admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States.'

"[Belva] Lockwood had been practicing law in the District of Columbia and qualified as the first female attorney to appear before the Court, in the 1880 case Kaiser v. Stickney. Lockwood spoke for about 20 minutes in court. Lockwood didn’t prevail in that case but won her second and final case at the Supreme Court in 1906. (She also ran for president twice on the National Equal Rights Party ticket."

https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/on-this-day-women-first-allowed-to-argue-supreme-court-cases

[Dr. Ed 2]

What portion of the constitution gave Congress the power to do this?

[John Mosby]

Art III Sec 2, second graf: " the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make."

Wouldn't qualifications for SCOTUS bar membership be a "regulation?" CC, JSM

[LexAquilia]

I don't ever do book recommendations, but I just finished The Wager, and feel compelled to. If you're into historical non-fiction, it's a great recounting of the once famous, now forgotten, story of the Wager, a Royal Navy ship that wrecked in 1741 off the coast of Patagonia during the War of Jenkins’ Ear. I rolled my eyes a few times at his virtue-signaling, but its few and forced and easy to ignore.

[Commenter_XY]

Re: DHS shutdown. What stops POTUS Trump from impounding funds from one area (like DOE) and reallocating that money to DHS? Realistically, isn't it only a majority vote in Congress? The Congress already passed one recission package. What is one more?

Alternatively, why not take this opportunity to abolish TSA? And make airlines responsible for passenger screening and safety. Post 9/11, I don't think the flying public would tolerate airlines shirking on security.

I would abolish TSA before abolishing ICE. 😉

[Dr. Ed 2]

Trump should do it.

[John Mosby]

I agree with you ref TSA, but I take this opportunity to note that "post-9/11" is starting to become like "post-Pearl Harbor." The visceral cultural memory is receding. And Pearl Harbor unified the country a lot more than 9/11 did. There was no Code Pink disrupting Congress during WWII. No RooseveltChimpHitler cartoons.

DHS, a creation of the Left (remember Lieberman was one of the loudest drum-beaters), is now a bete noire for the Left.

So airline customers might not scream for civilian security to be just as strict as TSA.

Nothing wrong with that - markets should decide issues of safety just like they decide issues of taste. CC, JSM

[hobie]

What you hayseeds are proposing is sort of like botanical senescence. In plants, the goal is to go out sacrificing everything for that all-important fruit/seed.

And for the hayseed, the only thing in life is the obliteration of the brownie. So it looks like you'll sacrifice everything in government, every constitutional amendment, whatever sorry-ass principles you may have had, and all monies to achieve that end. The body may die, but at least we're rid of the contagion.

[Commenter_XY]

Georgetown Law, swirling around the drain.

https://www.jns.org/former-penn-president-who-resigned-after-jew-hatred-hearing-named-georgetown-law-dean/

[LexAquilia]

Two thought experiments:

It's 2026, 5th generation warfare is abound.

What does colonization look like in 2026?

What does being occupied look like in 2026?

[Brett Bellmore]

Dinner yesterday turned out great.

It was a 6.5 pound prime rib. A couple days before I'd covered it with a commercial salt/pepper/garlic rub, and vacuum packed it, and stuffed it into the fridge.

Saturday morning about 6 am I took it out and dropped it in a sink full of warm water to take the fridge chill off a bit, then at 7 it went into our gas oven on sou vide setting, at 132 degrees, still in the vacuum pack.

Finally at 5 it came out, and I reset the oven to 500 degrees. I drained the juice from the bag into a pot together with some wine for a wine reduction sauce, patted it dry, and put it on a shelf in the freezer bare except for a square of foil for it to sit on.

About 20 minutes later I pulled it out of the freezer, and slathered on a compound butter with a lot of finely chopped rosemary, black pepper, and a bit of black garlic. The chill from the freezer helped it stick. Into the oven!

At 6 it came out, with a nice crust, and went straight to the dinner table. (Yes, there were other dishes going on at the same time.)

Nicely tender, properly seasoned, and rare to within a half inch of the surface, it was a real hit with my family.