Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

President Trump's idiotic tariff trade war could start tanking the economy soon. I mean, there is already damage being done as chaotic changes drive down business confidence. There's a real dynamic of "expectations drive reality" as mixed expectations for the future, lead to companies throttling back investments now, which leads to economic contraction and job loss (i.e, recession or even depression) in the near future. But there's more to it than just expectations driving reality. There's also reality driving reality.

In the past week I've written about the impact of Trump's new tariffs vis-a-vis price increases and shortages in the US. Friends and acquaintances are doing everything from stockpiling food to moving up purchases of major electronics. But there's more than just the impact to us as buyers.

I mentioned the fact that container deliveries are down 25%+ year over year at major US ports. Markedly less trade at ports means less work for port workers. That job loss will extend downstream to trucking and rail work, too. Oh, and if/when it gets to the point that shelves in stores are bare, stores will lay off workers. And as port workers, truckers, railroad operators, and everyone involved in the retail supply chains start to lose jobs, everything in the economy that serves workers with jobs— restaurants, stores, car dealers, the travel and leisure industry, etc.— will see reductions, too.

But wait, there's more.

Exports are suffering under reciprocal tariffs. You thought China was going to knuckle under just because we slapped a 125% tariff on them? No! Even an idiot— except a big orange one and his sycophants— could have predicted they'd say, "Ha ha, fuck you, here's a 125% tariff for you!" And that's exactly what they did.

The thing about a 125% tariff is it's essentially a killer. It kills trade, it kills exports on affected products, because there are few cases where consumers are going to pay that much more.

I heard a story in that vein on the radio a few days ago. Journalists were interviewing a man who owns a pig farm. He ships most of his pork to China, and the Chinese are canceling their orders now. He wasn't optimistic about being able to find buyers in other countries to replace all that business.

I did a bit of research since hearing that story on the radio. Pork production in the US is a 28+ billion dollar a year industry. Over 30% of it exports. (Source: National Pork Board 2024 statistics.) China is the second largest export market. Exports to China may drop essentially to zero as prices to Chinese consumers increase to unsustainable levels. Exports to other countries may drop off substantially, too, as they contend with lesser tariffs (less than 125%, anyway) that still drive major drops in demand.

So there you have it. The impending tariff disaster is not just, "Oh, no, I can't buy a cheap TV anymore!" but job losses across all industries, including and down to manufacturing and agriculture.

In the news yesterday was announced a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. The deal, brokered by the US, Qatar, and Egypt, would see Israeli hostages held in Gaza returned and a number of Palestinian prisoners in Israel released in the first of three phases. The first phase would also involve Israel withdrawing its troops from most of Gaza and allowing humanitarian aid to flood in. Example news coverage: CNN.com article, 15 Jan 2025.

One might wonder while hearing this objectively good news, Why now? What took so long? This war, now in its 16th month, was instigated by Hamas's surprise October 7 attack on Israel killing 1,400 people and taking as hostages over 100 people, most of whom were civilians. One ceasefire was attempted over a year ago; it lasted less than a week. And the framework agreed to yesterday is one US negotiators in the Biden administration first proposed last May. They've been working on getting acceptance for 8 months.

So why now? Why after 16 months of grinding war and significant humanitarian crisis, and after 8 months of negotiation on the same framework? Well, first, such negotiations are never fast. The sides have got to fight it out until their positions, and future possibilities, become clear enough. Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz famously said, with slight paraphrasing, "War is diplomacy by other means." But still, why now? What changed recently to get the parties to shift their form of diplomacy from guns and bombs to words and handshakes? To me it's three things:

1. Hamas's military support has been significantly degraded. Destroying Hamas's own means of making war and launching terrorist attacks has a constant in the conflict since its start. Even six months ago a lot of it had been destroyed... and what was left was very well hidden. But what's really changed in the past few months is that Hamas's allies have suffered major losses. Hezbollah lost hundreds of its leaders in a carefully orchestrated, intelligence-driven attack by Israel a few months ago. You may remember that as the one with the exploding pagers. And walkie-talkies. Then last month rebels swiftly ousted Syrian leader Bashar Assad, who fled to Russia. The common denominator behind all three of these— Hamas, Hezbollah, Assad— is that they've been propped up by Iran. Iran has lost significant resources and international standing as its clients have been beaten. Plus, tough international sanctions against Iran have continued to bite. The bottom line of Iran having fewer proxies and less money to throw at them is that Hamas military leaders now no longer see themselves being as capable of achieving anything, even their leaders' personal survival, through continued war.

2. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is in a stronger position domestically. It's been charged many times over the past umpteen months that one reason Israel reached a ceasefire agreement is because it doesn't want one. While that statement on its face may seem like a tautology, what it's pointing to is Netanyahu's precarious position in Israeli politics. He's been clinging onto power by a small margin and will face prosecution on corruption charges once he's no longer in power. Thus he's kept the country in a state of war, many allege, because the active war blunts his opponents' push to remove him. And he's held onto a slim governing majority that includes far-right parties that are war-mongers. With recent successes such as that exploding-pager victory over Hezbollah, and Assad's fall in Syria, Netanyahu is enjoying broader support at him. He finally has enough political margin to risk crossing his far-right coalition members.

3. The President Trump Wildcard. One thing I wondered right away when I heard news of the ceasefire agreement yesterday morning was why this thing negotiated by President Biden's envoys was coming to fruition only in the last few days of his administration. Was "Get it done before Trump comes in" a factor? Indeed, president-elect Trump claimed credit for the agreement on his Truth Social media platform even before President Biden announced it officially in a news conference. But did Trump really do anything? I'd say yes and no. No, he didn't participate in the negotiations directly. His people were involved at the very end, as part of the Biden team's commitment to a smooth handover— something, I'll note, Trump and his team absolutely did not do in January 2020— but they certainly weren't involved in the 8 months of negotiating it took to get to yesterday's agreement. And Trump's personal contribution was his fear factor. As he's signaled unconditional support for Israel throughout his campaign, called for even tougher actions against Hamas, and rejected all concerns about humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Hamas's leadership had to realize that making a deal under Biden was their last, best chance.

Update: Even as I posted this journal entry, the ceasefire deal was already getting wobbly with threatened resignations from Netanyahu's coalition and ongoing attacks.

In a move that should have surprised absolutely no one, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. suspended his campaign yesterday and announced his support for Donald Trump. Well, okay, the exact timing of Kennedy ending his failing campaign— he was down to about 5% support in polling averages— was anybody's guess. But the fact he aligns with Trump should be no surprise to anybody.

Kennedy rose to national prominence as an anti-vaccine skeptic and crusader. In 2007 he founded a fringe nonprofit that has gone on to become the most well funded anti-fax organization in the US. He promoted health conspiracies during the Covid pandemic, argued that the government should force medical journals to publish provably flawed research, and wanted Anthony Fauci to be prosecuted. Oh, and recently campaigned on dismantling the HHS. He called the NIH, CDC, and FDA "corrupt" and called for replacing their leadership with "like-minded"— read: antivaxx, anti-government crackpot— people.

This is just one that Kennedy has championed, but it's a big one and it's clearly Trump/extreme right aligned. Still, Kennedy campaigned for the Democratic nomination in 2023 before dropping out and seeking the Libertarian party nomination, then running as an independent. Along the way he's done a lot of his campaigning through extreme right wing media.

Kennedy does have some credibility as a Democratic candidate. Frankly, though, his biggest credential is his name. He's the son of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy.

Earlier this year it was widely reported repeated in the news that Kennedy's independent campaign was a big threat to Joe Biden, as he would likely siphon off more Biden voters than Trump voters. This argument was published in right-wing echo chamber media such as Fox News and the National Review. The craven mainstream media credulously repeated these claims, attempting no factual counterpoint— this is why I replaced "reported" with "repeated" above— not even scratching the surface of the claims to show audiences how untrue what they were repeating was.

Now we learn that Kennedy, in a Trump-like move, apparently hit up both campaigns (Harris and Trump) offering his endorsement in exchange for the promise of a cabinet level position. The Harris campaign rejected his overtures through intermediaries, while sources speaking on condition of anonymity say Eric Trump has been brokering conversations with him for weeks.

Kennedy's latest Trump-like move came in his public comments on his endorsement,. He went long on complaining about "attacks on democracy" while endorsing Trump, who's spent 4 years promoting conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being stolen. This is the mindset of the guy they thought would take votes from Democrats?

Trump, who previously called Kennedy "one of the most Liberal Lunatics ever to run for office" and "the dumbest member" of the Kennedy family, now calls him "a brilliant guy", "very smart", and indicates he may offer him a cabinet role in his administration.

On Saturday former president Donald Trump was nearly assassinated. One of my first thoughts when I saw the breaking news was, "OMG, I hope whoever shot him doesn't strongly identify with Democratic politics." The last thing we need right now— other than a political assassination— is for the false narrative Trumpists have been telling for years now that Democrats are extreme and violent and out to "get" "real" Americans to be bolstered by an actual instance of leftwing violence. So far it's just been a fiction they repeat daily. And, of course, plenty of people believe it because they repeat it so often and point to made-up or heavily distorted stories to justify it. But for an actual, bonafide instance to occur.... That would take their fear-mongering of violent lefties to the next level.

And that takes us to where we're at in understanding the motivations of Thomas Matthew Crooks, the person who allegedly shot at Trump. Authorities are basically nowhere in understanding him. Shooters, whether they're would-be assassins or mass shooters of ordinary civilians, often leave a manifesto, explaining and justifying their strongly held beliefs. Crooks left no manifesto. Shooters often air their beliefs among like-minded people, either in person or (much more common today) in splinter groups online. Crooks did none of that, either, at least as far as authorities have discovered and made public.

In the first hours after the shooting I saw claims on social media that Crooks was aligned with various far-right political groups. I haven't seen these in fact-checked stories in mainstream media. Thus I'm taking them with a large grain of salt until otherwise reported.

A jury in Manhattan surprisingly returned a verdict late this afternoon in the case against Donald Trump for falsifying business records. Prosecutors charged that the former president paid hush money to porn actress Story Daniels to cover up an alleged affair, then lied about those payments in his business records to cover up the coverup. After just 2 days of deliberation the jury found Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts.

I've been following news of trial daily the past few weeks, though not blogging about it because— like I've written a few times before— I'd rather this blog not be consumed by politics. I've got to say, as a person reading the news daily, I'm surprised the jury convicted.

Why is it a surprise? Because, quite to the contrary of what Trump and his propaganda allies in the right-wing media and Congress have claimed without fact the judge said in the courtroom, a guilty verdict requires a unanimous decision by the jury. All 12 member must vote to convict. All it takes is one juror finding reasonable doubt; their vote to acquit prevents a guilty verdict.

Was there reasonable doubt? In my opinion from what I saw of the evidence, no. But I am not representative of the mindset of every person in this country. Some 40% of the electorate believe the lies repeated every morning, noon, and night by Trump and his allies— that the trial is rigged, the judge is corrupt, the judge made numerous outright violations of the law, all the prosecution's witnesses were lying, and it was all orchestrated by President Biden to knock Trump out of the 2024 presidential race.

All it would've taken was one out of 12 people on the jury to be a hardliner among that 40% and claim reasonable doubt, and then we'd have a hung jury and a mistrial. That's what I expected: a hung jury. Instead we got an unanimous vote to convict... and on all 34 counts... and quicker than just about anybody expected.

Do these guilty verdicts change the 2024 presidential campaign? Indications so far are "Not really." Trump being convicted does not make him ineligible to run, or to be elected, or to serve as president. He could even run from prison, if he's sentenced to prison. That's been done before by other presidential candidates! And Trump very well could still win in November. Most of the people who were going to vote for him already believed the trial was an utter sham and a miscarriage of justice. Him being convicted only proves what they already believed, that President Biden is the corrupt one. Plus, there's the right of appeal. Anything could happen on appeal, from the case being overturned on a technicality to the far-right-wingers on the Supreme Court making up some outrageous new legal theory setting aside the conviction.

Wednesday night was the third Republican presidential debate. Yes, here were are just under a year away from Election Day 2024, and already we're on our third debate for candidates contending for the GOP nomination. ...Except they're not so much competing for the nomination as who'll be in second place— distant second place.

There were five candidates on the stage Wednesday night: Florida governor Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, North Carolina senaor Tim Scott, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie.

The field that qualified for the event has narrowed a bit since the earlier debates. Former Arkansas gov. Asa Hutchinson and North Dakota gov. Doug Burgum did not make the cut based on polling numbers and fundraising requirements. (Burgum notoriously bought his way into meeing the fundraising requirements— then complained in a press release two days before the event that "elites" and "insiders" were trying to keep him out.) Former vice president Mike Pence suspended his campaign two weeks ago, on Oct. 28. He said he wasn't finding enough traction in polls.

The Elephant Not In The Room

Of course, none of the five on stage are really finding much traction in the polls. At best they're polling barely over 10% among likely voters in the Republican primary. Former president and de facto party leader Donald Trump dominates the field with nearly 60% support.

What would you expect a crowd of future also-rans to do in a situation like this? Reason and history both suggest more should drop out, as the chances of any of them winning are remote at this point; and those who remain should focus on explaining to voters how they're meaningfully different than the leader. Instead they spent most of their time sniping at each other. This debate group is like the kids' table at Thanksgiving, and instead of making the case for why any of them should sit with the grownups, they... had a food fight among themselves.

"A Party of Losers"

The ironic best line of the night may have come from Ramaswamy when he thundered, "We've become a party of losers." Indeed he's right... but not in the way he thinks. He referenced the party's poor showing the day before, when repoductive rights won in Ohio, Democrats took both houses of the state legislature in Virginia, and a Democratic governor won reelection in Kentucky. Any sensible analysis of Tuesday's outcome concludes that far right positions, especially being far to the right of the mainstream on outlawing abortion, are losers. Instead Ramaswamy's argument was that his party is not extreme enough. He blamed all the election losses on the GOP not doing enough to combat media hoaxes. Apparently, to him, everything that Republican politicians seem to have done wrong since 2016 didn't actually happen but is a mass delusion rigged by a vast and tight conspiracy of hostile news media.

Last night was the first Republican presidential primary debate of the 2024 presidential election cycle. Eight candidates vying for the GOP nomination took the stage in an event hosted and broadcast live by Fox News.



The candidates were former vice president Mike Pence; Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; former South Carolina governor and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, former South Carolina governor and former ambassador to the UN; Vivek Ramaswamy; North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum; South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott; former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson; and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie.

The Elephant Not in the Room

This debate was in many ways a race to be 2024's also ran— or, more accurately, 2024's also-also ran. That's because former president Donald Trump, who skipped this debate, holds an astonishing lead in opinion polls, with 62% of likely GOP primary voters saying they'd vote for him. The closest competitor is Ron DeSantis, with 16%. Everybody else is in single digits.

Trump not only skipped this debate, he counter-programmed it. He recorded a one-on-one interview with former Fox News TV personality Tucker Carlson that was streamed on X (formerly known as Twitter) starting just 5 minutes before the GOP debate. Consider that a huge middle finger not just to Republican party but to Fox News as well.

Recall that when Trump skipped a GOP primary debate in 2016 Fox News was very critical of him. This time around they tried playing nice even as Trump dunked on them. He not only counter-programmed their live debate, he did it with a disgraced former employee they fired over his involvement in a lawsuit that cost the company nearly 800 million dollars.

Winners and Losers in the Race for Second Place

Everyone always wants to know who won or lost the debate. Based on what I've seen and read there are at least 10 winners and losers— which is astonishing for a debate that only had 8 candidates. I'll keep the list shorter here at 3:

Winner: Nikki Haley. Haley won for Most in Touch with the US Mainstream. She broke with right-wing orthodoxy in criticizing the enormous debt added under Trump's administration, acknowledging that human-caused climate change is real and is a crisis, and saying that abortion shouldn't be banned at the federal level. She also spoke well and clearly, coming across both polished and thoughtful. Would I vote for her? Hell no. While her positions would have intrigued me back in the 1990s, the modern GOP is nothing like the party of 30 years ago. They have remade themselves into a shocking amalgam of liars, clowns, grifters, and fascists. A vote for any one of them is a vote for the whole rotten party and its rotten ideas. I will never again vote for a GOP candidate in any race until the party is reformed— and by reformed I mean so thoroughly cleaned of noxious beliefs and members that really the only solution is for it to go the way of the Whig Party and let something new rise from its ashes.

Winner: Vivek Ramaswamy. Ramaswamy won for Most Trump-like. He knew all the MAGA hot buttons and pressed them. He was bombastic, ignorant, and frankly scary with his outrageous proposals for, e.g., extrajudicial killings of criminal suspects and invading Mexico.

Loser: Ron DeSantis. DeSantis has long been seen as the second place contender in this primary cycle, the only candidate who has a chance of taking the nomination from Trump (as remote as the polling numbers indicate that is). After his campaign has stumbled several times in recent weeks this debate was seen as his moment to shine. Instead, he fell flat. His wooden performance underscored a minority opinion I've seen for weeks about his high profile as Florida governor— that he's strong in carefully choreographed PR opportunities with friendly media inside the GOP echo chamber but can't handle anything outside of that. Indeed, here even inside the GOP echo chamber with friendly media, just criticism from within his own party left him stumbling to find footing.

After a federal grand jury on Tuesday afternoon indicted Donald Trump with 4 charges related to subverting the results of 2020 election to remain in power illegally, Trump, one of his lawyers, and his surrogates in politics and conservative media have all predictably resorted to a Free Speech defense. As a matter of the First Amendment, they tell us, Donald Trump has the absolute and protected right to state a political opinion. This is no less than a Communist attack on the country's beloved Constitution! ...Or is it?

I said this Free Speech defense is predictable.... How predictable is it? It's so predictable that Special Counsel Jack Smith addressed it in literally the third paragraph under "Introduction" of his 45 page document. For example, see CNN's full text of indictment with annotation (1 Aug 2023).


As you read this you can sense there's a "But" coming. That "But" is spelled out in the next 43½ pages.

What's the "But"? The but is the difference between speech and conduct. The Constitution protects free speech. It does not guarantee free conduct. Rep. Jamie Raskin gave a vivid example of the difference in a media interview Wednesday:


Trump's Free Speech defense is a non-starter in any court of law. Unfortunately in the court of public opinion plus-or-minus half the country will think it's true.

Yesterday former president Donald Trump was arraigned in federal court in Miami on changes of mishandling secret documents, obstruction of justice, and false statements. The arraignment follows the unsealing of the 38-count indictment on Friday. One of Trump's long-time personal aides, Walt Nauta, was also charged as a co-defendant. Both men pleaded not guilty.

News coverage of the events leading up to the arraignment, and Trump's statements since, has been vast. It's basically the biggest story in the new, frequently pushing out news about the current president. I've avoided writing much about it in my blog, though. That's not because I'm not following the events, don't care, or don't have strong opinions.... I am following the news, on a daily basis. I do care, strongly. And I do have strong opinions. But the legality of Trump's actions and the politics around it are not what I want my blog to be about. Thus right now I'm just jotting down a few facts. I may come back around to the topic to share opinions later.

This just in! A jury in Manhattan this afternoon found former president and 2024 candidate Donald Trump liable for sexual assault and defamation of E. Jean Carroll. Carroll alleged that Trump raped her in a department store fitting room in the 1990s. The jury awarded Carroll damages of $5 million.

I am surprised by this verdict. Just last night I remarked to my spouse, after the case had gone to the jury for deliberation earlier in the day, that I thought there wasn't enough evidence to prove the allegations. Carroll testified that it happened, and a few friends testified that she told them about it years ago, but there was no hard evidence of an assault.

Now, this is a civil law trial, not a criminal case. The standard of proof is lower. Plaintiffs only need to show that allegations are supported by “a preponderance of the evidence”. Perhaps I'm mis-intepreting what preponderance means, legally, but I'm not sure it wasn't met.

Trump didn't help himself in this trial. In a videotaped deposition he defended his "Grab 'em by the pussy" comments in the infamous Access Hollywood tape from several years ago. At the time he minimized his statements as "locker room talk". He repeated that characterization on social media within the past week. But here's the thing: the phrase "locker room talk" describes idle boasting that is exaggerated or untrue. When challenged about that quote in the deposition, Trump defended it. "Historically that's true," he said, reaffirming that in his worldview powerful men have the prerogative of being able to have their way with any woman— "unfortunately or fortunately."

Perhaps more crucially, Trump undermined one of his own lines of defense in the deposition. "She's not even my type," Trump has said numerous times, broadly implying that she's too fat, or old, or unattractive for him to even consider touching sexually. Yet when the plaintiff's attorney showed Trump a picture of him standing next to Carroll at a public even years ago, Trump misidentified Carroll as Marla Maples, one of his ex-wives. "That's my wife," Trump said matter-of-factly in the videotape. One can easily conclude that if Carroll looked enough like Trump's ex-wife for him to confuse them in a press photograph, she is the type he found physically attractive.