Billionaire know nothings are going to be our donwfall:

Aaron Rupar
@atrupar.com
Lutnick: "The army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little screws to make iPhones -- that kind of thing is going to come to America."

James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social
Q for Lutnick:

Find a single iPhone factory where "millions of human beings are screwing in little screws"

I've been inside a lot of these places. He is now proving that he never has. Even 5 years ago you'd see people monitoring robots, and doing quality-check. not the little screws

Stupid people don't know they are stupid. Trump is stupid. Kushner is stupid. Navarro is stupid. And so is everyone who is going all in on the Trump tariff "plan". I put plan in quotes because:

TAPPER: Conservative economists at AEI say that when the Trump administration came up with your tariff rates, you mixed up import prices and retail prices and the entire computation is wrong

BROOKE ROLLINS: I have not read

TAPPER: I'd ask you to check it out

Aaron Rupar
@atrupar.com
WELKER: The markets lost more than $6 trillion in value. Was this disruption always part of the plan?

BESSENT: We had record volume on Friday and everything is working very smoothly. So the American people can take great comfort in that.

"HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was expected to attend the child's funeral"

Why? Guilty conscience?

Video of Agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins at link. She makes some pretty bold predictions regarding how the tarriffs will bring prosperity to farmers:

TAPPER: You're imposing a 10% on the Heard and MccDonald islands. They have zero human inhabitants. Why are you putting tariffs on islands entirely populated by penguins?

ROLLINS: Whatever. Listen, the people leading this are serious, intentional, patriotic, the smartest I've ever worked with.

There is a difference between dying in a training accident and dying in direct combat.
#9 | Posted by boaz

Hmm, I wonder if Trump will show up for their funerals even though they only died in a training accident? As a marketing guy, an image guy, I think he might. It would be good PR for a president who is busy cutting services to veterans.

More perspective:

When American Soldiers Were in Trouble, Our Allies Showed Up

Inside the allied effort to find four soldiers lost in a training exercise.

OVER THE LAST WEEK, amid government turmoil, massive new tariffs, a stock market free-fall beckoning a possible recession, and other major news, many Americans likely missed a story that was unfolding in the normally quiet forests of Lithuania. Four U.S. soldiers, including three seasoned and professional non-commissioned officers, tragically lost their lives when their M88 Hercules recovery vehicle was swallowed by a hidden sinkhole during a training mission. The remains of Staff Sgt. Jose Duenez Jr., Staff Sgt. Edvin F. Franco, PFC Dante D. Taitano, and Staff Sgt. Troy S. Knutson-Collins were recovered after an exhaustive eight-day operation that showcased not only the unwavering commitment of American forces to their fellow soldiers, but also the profound solidarity of our allies in Europe.

Perspective:

Lithuanians bid farewell to 4 US troops who died in training accident

Lithuania's political and religious leaders joined thousands of people on Thursday to bid farewell to four American soldiers who died during a training exercise in the Baltic nation.

President Gitanas Nausda and other dignitaries were among those who stood in respect as hearses carried the bodies of the four young Americans to Vilnius airport before being flown to the United States for burial.

Many of the onlookers were in tears, and Nausda said that the reaction of the population and the military to the disappearance of soldiers was rooted in Lithuania's own difficult history.

"Lots of good signs"

One of my favs:

"Trump Family's Cash Registers Ring as Financial Meltdown Plays Out"

Here's a thread by one of the article's authors with photos from the event:

Donald Trump: If the DOW drops 1,000 points in two days the President should be impeached immediately!
11/6/2012

Why hang out honoring suckers and losers when you could be making some cold hard cash:

Trump Family's Cash Registers Ring as Financial Meltdown Plays Out

The party was on at a Saudi-backed LIV Golf tournament at the president's Doral resort in Florida and a fund-raiser at Mar-a-Lago, even as markets tumbled.

The financial market meltdown was underway when President Trump boarded Air Force One on his way to Florida on Thursday for a doubleheader of sorts: a Saudi-backed golf tournament at his family's Miami resort and a weekend of fund-raisers attracting hundreds of donors to his Palm Beach club.

It was a fresh reminder that in his second term, Mr. Trump has continued to find ways to drive business to his family-owned real-estate ventures, a practice he has sustained even when his work in Washington has caused worldwide financial turmoil.

More on the topic:

Trump Shares Video About How He Is Purposely Crashing the Stock Market

Several close allies of the president and ex-officials told Rolling Stone they were "at a loss for words" when asked about the video

Speaking to Rolling Stone, several close Trump allies and administration officials, who often defend Trump's most fanatical actions, outbursts, or policies, did not or would not even bother defending the wisdom of a president promoting to the world the idea that he is tanking the stock market deliberately.

FTA:

President Donald Trump spent billions of dollars to bail out farmers when his first-term trade war hurt agricultural exports.

But his new tariffs could be much worse for farmers this time around.

The farm economy has shifted dramatically since 2018. Higher inflation has sent prices for fertilizer, seed and other inputs soaring and increased interest rates for farmers' annual operating loans to as high as 8 percent this year. Prices for major crops like soybeans and corn have plummeted roughly 40 percent since 2022--partly because Trump's first trade war reshaped the global market for soybeans, with Brazil and Argentina emerging as major competitors to the U.S.

And though Trump is starting to explore another bailout, the fund he used to assist farmers the first time is now nearly depleted.

Jon of The North
@krauza.bsky.social

Canada picked a guy with a PhD in economics from Oxford.

Mexico chose a woman with a degree in physics and a PhD in energy engineering.

The U.S. handed the job to a carnival-barking senior citizen, with multiple felonies and six bankruptcies under his belt.

I know a number of people who protested yesterday and was impressed by the number of people who went out to protest in my area despite the really lousy weahter. Lots of good signs. Hopefully there will be a next time, the weather will be better and even more people will turn out.

Aside from Sen Bernie Sanders, Rep Ocasio-Cortez and Sen Booker, I've not seen a lot of attempts of persuasion to support Democrats.
What I did see was Sen Schumer surrendering to MAGA in the Senate recently.
So, I ask, again, will the Democrats be able to channel this enthusiasm and energy?
Upcoming elections will be critical for the future of the Republic and for Democracy.
Will the Democrats blow it ... again?
#51 | Posted by LampLighter

Perhaps you haven't heard about the Democrats holding town halls in red districts/states where Republicans aren't holding them. You can Google it, but here are a few examples to get you started:

The Tennessee Holler
@thetnholler.bsky.social
JUST NOW at the @SenWarren town hall in NASHVILLE: "How can kids help things get better?" "

Hmmm:

Sanho Tree @sanho.bsky.social
11m
Reply to Sanho Tree
Laura Loomer walked into the Oval Office and knocked off the head of NSA. Who put the conspiracy loon up to it? Her Nazi loving pal Nick Fuentes? A foreign intelligence agency? Elon? Who knows?????????

Sanho Tree @sanho.bsky.social
1mo
Years before Hitler invaded the USSR, Nazi agents planted fake disloyalty rumors about Stalin's top generals on Vienna phone lines they knew Soviets had tapped. They convinced Stalin to purge & shoot his own best generals before the outbreak of war. Imagine Putin's FSB planting gossip today

Perspective:

Carl Quintanilla
@carlquintanilla.bsky.social
In other words, more than ten years worth of projected tariff "revenue".

Bespoke
@bespokeinvest
Based on pre-market futures, the US stock market has lost $8.2 trillion in value since Trump's 2nd term began in January.

Russell 3,000 market cap:

1/17: $61.4 trillion
Current: $53.2 trillion

Who's tired of all this winning?:

Carl Quintanilla
@carlquintanilla.bsky.social
BESPOKE: ".. Based on pre-market trading, the S&P is now down 12.3% at 53 trading days into Trump 2.0."
April 4, 2025 at 8:08 AM

Abrego Garcia, who is married to a U.S. citizen and has a 5-year-old disabled child who is also a U.S. citizen, has no criminal record in the United States, according to his attorney. The Trump administration does not claim he has a criminal record, but called him a "danger to the community" and an active member of MS-13, the Salvadoran gang that Trump has declared a foreign terrorist organization.

Sandoval-Moshenberg said that those charges are false, and that the gang label stems from a 2019 incident when Abrego Garcia and three other men were detained in a Home Depot parking lot by a police detective in Prince George's County, Maryland. During questioning, one of the men told officers that Abrego Garcia was a gang member, but the man offered no proof and police said they didn't believe him, filings show. Police did not identify him as a gang member.

Abrego Garcia was not charged with a crime, but he was handed over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after the arrest to face deportation. In those proceedings, the government claimed that a reliable informant had identified him as a ranking member of MS-13. Abrego Garcia and his family hired an attorney and fought the government's attempt to deport him. He received "withholding of removal" six months later, a protected status.

It is not a path to permanent U.S. residency, but it means the government won't deport him back to his home country, because he's more likely than not to face harm there.

Abrego Garcia has had no contact with any law-enforcement agency since his release, according to his attorney. He works full time as a union sheet-metal apprentice, has complied with requirements to check in annually with ICE, and cares for his 5-year-old son, who has autism and a hearing defect, and is unable to communicate verbally.

Adam Klasfeld
@klasfeldreports.com

A federal judge has denied the U.S. Institute of Peace's request to block the transfer their $500M headquarters to the government at no cost.

The transfer is "done," making the request "moot," she says.

Federal Judge Allows DOGE to Take Over $500 Million Office Building For Free

It's the culmination of a weeks-long standoff between Elon Musk's DOGE team and the United States Institute of Peace.

On Tuesday, US district judge Beryl Howell effectively allowed the transfer of the headquarters building of the United States Institute of Peace to the General Services Administration.

FTA:

What is surprising is how little has been made of the similarities between Trump's efforts and those undertaken by Bill Clinton more than 30 years ago. Clinton appointed his vice president, Al Gore, to undertake a so-called National Performance Review (NPR), aimed at reinventing government. The Gore Commission (as it became known) was also aimed at streamlining and reducing the size of the federal government, but there was more to it. In many ways, what Gore set out to do was even more ambitious than Musk's chainsaw approach.

Like Trump, Clinton and Gore used presidential directives and executive orders to implement many of their downsizing efforts. But unlike the current effort, the cutting didn't start until they had gone through a six-month study process and developed a blueprint of how to best reinvent the federal government. Government agencies were brought into the process to determine the best ways that efficiencies could be realized. In fact, the effort was led by some 250 federal employees that remained on their agency payrolls.

"If the administration is working not to save money but rather to destroy the government, the cuts that threaten the well-being of American citizens make more sense."

Rogue SSA
@alt-ssa.altgov.info

This is so bad. Worse than people can imagine.

When you work in our systems, you're generally working in dozens of separate programs that interact with the COBOL architecture. Every one of those would need to be rebuilt. Even if they succeed in migrating, no one would be able to do their jobs.