I wasn’t planning on posting again so soon, I was working on a nifty piece about guacamole for the weekend, but even given the extraordinary times we live in these are some of the most extraordinary days that I can remember.
If you were going to write a novel based on the past few weeks, it would get rejected by a publisher as too far out there to be credible, because it would read as mash-up of “Bonfire of the Vanities” meets “Seven Days in May” meets “What About Bob?”
One
The Democrats finally found a stop-line for their rout and they are going to fight on… USAID. Press conferences and political theater outside of the shuttered USAID HQ. Shutting down the Senate confirmation process for Trump nominees. The media stating that the world will starve.
So I’m sure the Democrats and the various circles of the Left understand that they are planning to make a stand fighting a president who won a decisive election on reducing the role of government and “Making America Great Again”… by defending a government agency whose “public” mission is foreign aid.
That might sound good on MSNBC and other lefty echo chambers, but in reality it would make a reader wonder if the Democrats were insane, or if some of them were MAGA sleeper agents.
The Democrats are going to make a stand and then get flanked out of position as Musk’s group and the veritable Army of Davids start mapping out how USAID isn’t so much about feeding starving kids in Africa, that’s just the cover, as it is a giant influence operation that supports the DC establishment.
Genius.
Two
The hidden question of the USAID sub-plot is of course not so much why Trump kneecapped it, but why the Democrats are so desperate to fight him on it. Just as accepting a blanket pardon gets people curious as to what you may have done, going to the political wall for a foreign aid agency at this moment in times raises questions like, Why are they holding starving kids in Africa hostage to keep the funding taps open for their NGO network?
Time to get JD Vance on to one of the Sunday talk shows. He seems pretty good at these sorts of things.
Three
For the past month or two we have been bombarded with stories about how Trump’s return is about the installation of an oligarchy. Remember that scene from the ancient past, two weeks ago, when Musk was joined at Trump’s inauguration by Bezos and Zuckerberg?
And of course there has been the steady stream of spew from the Left about how Musk personally is going to steal the government.
Remember that guy from way back in December, who killed the health industry CEO? Luigi Mangione? He’s back in court later this month and that will generate headlines. The man was already well on his way to being a folk hero for the Left before all of this. With the current political climate that is being stoked by the Left, does anyone want to take bets on his status by March?
So, in addition to supporting political corruption, foreign aid, and illegal immigrants, the Left is going to embrace a murderer.
You know it’s going to happen. The plot demands it.
I mean, everyone’s voice of reason just called Elon Musk a “Nazi nepo baby.”
I’m already working on the copyright for that. The t-shirt and coffee mug sales will be enormous.
Like I said, good luck getting a publisher to pick up this manuscript.
Four
Trump has already moved on, and has already, once again, sucked the oxygen out of the room with a press conference regarding Gaza.
So, forget the past two weeks. In just the past few days he has: beaten Canada and Mexico into submission regarding border security through threats of tariffs, gotten Panama to agree to secure the Canal Zone, shut down USAID, gotten two of his most controversial nominees (RFK and Gabbard) out of committee, and now this.
The Left’s response is to be the proverbial dog chasing the car.
Note to Democrats. If you want to find your way back to the middle you need to stop having people like Omar, Schatz, and Pressley be the face of your party.
So what will be in the next few chapters of our soon-to-be written novel?
The China tariffs are showing consequences:
https://nypost.com/2025/02/04/business/us-postal-service-suspends-incoming-packages-from-china-hong-kong/
Shien, Temu and Allibaba hardest hit. Apprently Trump didn’t make an exception for de minimus. This allows anything with a declared value less than $800 in duty free. Beyond all the cheap schlock, you can imagine that those millions of packages aren’t very well inspected. Lord only knows what else is in them. Now, presumably, everything will have to clear customs.
That’s going to hit China hard but it will also hit Canada and Mexico. From experience, beyond the cost of duty, paid by the recipient, it adds days to weeks to the transit time. Various Chinese entities were building warehouses in Mexico so that individual pieces could be shipped duty free into the U.S. with short lead times compared to coming directly from China. It will also hit Amazon and eBay, some large proportion of their “merchants” are operating under this.
Should have been clearer, I don’t think de minimus has changed for Mexico and Canada, yet, but I have to imagine that some sort of reciprocity will happen sooner rather than later. I think Canada’s de minimus limit is around $10 now.
> the installation of an oligarchy
Here, have this press clip: http://i.imgur.com/O8V5lma.png
It’s the unsuspect Jerusalem Post, in its 2016.10.26 front page, stating proudly that Hillary Clinton “outraised Trump among billionaires 20-1”.
What they’re pissed about is that the oligarchy changed tune.
“The China tariffs are showing consequences:”
Ending the de minimis order in the morning and restoring it in the afternoon leaves everyone (including the Chinese) puzzling. Was this the random unauthorized act of some USPS wallah who wanted to demonstrate his loyalty to the new Administration? Or was this a screw-up by that Administration? Or was this a subtle message to the Chinese to get ready for serious negotiations, because they have no idea what surprise movement President Trump might make next?
Personally, I lean to the last explanation. Cutting off the de minimis customs treatment would be very damaging to US consumers, since many of those low-cost items cannot be replaced from elsewhere in the world, and it would take years or decades for the US to restart making them ourselves. At the same time, there are an awful lot of Chinese workers whose paychecks depend on continuing to service the US market — and the Chinese rulers certainly don’t want to face an angry population with skyrocketing unemployment. Let’s hope that both sides are willing to compromise.
So the news just picks up speed. Now there is news that Politico cannot make payroll and coincidentally had received over $8 million from the feds for subscriptions. It looks like Bill Kristol has received millions of federal dollars for his organization though it’s not clear what they did with it
Leave aside Bondi at Justice looking into the Trump lawfare cases or the various agency heads looking into the archives, this is going to create a drip-by-drip series of revelations where the Left cannot be sure anything is safe. In our story the embezzler was making good money slicing a few percentage points off the cash flow, now the auditors are here and nobody is safe. Maybe they are packing their getaway bags down in DC NW and McLean
What’s next? It took the Dems 12 years, from 1980-1992, to get from Jimmy Carter to the Southern Leadership Council. Carter was whipped, but four years Mondale lost in a landslide and then Dukakis rode the tank.
Who knows how long it will take this time, but there is a smell of desperation among the Democrats. Yes many of the Democrats out there are from the progressive wing from Omar to Crockett, but there is also Schumer and then Jefferies who is telling Dems to fight in the street
The moderates, we’ll call it the Shapiro/Fetterman wing for now, says fight? For what? USAID graft and illegals?
There will have to be an end to the story, maybe it will be like Downfall where Schumer and the rest realize that the gig is up, that Schörner isn’t coming as DOGE and MAGA closes in on their bunker and Trump’s verbal salvos rain in overhead
What we are seeing here is the deployment of the new Wunderwaffe. AI. In our movie, Musk gets on a plane and travels to faraway Nebraska to meet this strange wunderkind named Luke Farritor who has unraveled the mysteries of the Pompeii scroll with AI. Musk explains what he needs, and much like the scene from John Wick where the assassin meets the armorer to go shopping, Farritor smiles and shows the power of AI by rendering a database in seconds. Both he and Musk smile, shake hands, and the scene ends. Musk has recruited yet another member of the Super Friends.
AI has been waiting for its true public moment, to demonstrate to the world its power of information management. Who controls the AI algorithm and the databases, will wield the true power because then there will be nohwere to hide
Theres a touch of dave although charles groden was just one guy compared to the doge team
Theres the winter soldier from classic marvel (this was back when snowden was regarded as an unalloyed hero, instead of the flip switch when hes regarded as a traitor (the Times the Post the Journal havent given up their pulitzers have they)
The article at the link I gave yesterday changed slightly after I posted it:
https://nypost.com/2025/02/04/business/us-postal-service-suspends-incoming-packages-from-china-hong-kong/
That’s how news stories work sometimes. The USPS announced that they would be coordinating with Customs to work out a system for collecting the tariffs. I believe this means they’re still holding all those packages while they get a system in place that will mean that the recipients will have to pay the duty to get them delivered. Considering how blindingly efficient the Post Office is, they’ll need to raise the tariff considerably just to pay the cost of collecting it.
What they also touched on without further explanation is that China is considered a “developing” country under international postal treaties. This means that mail, including packages, from there is heavily subsidized by us and cost the shipper far less than even our domestic postage. Look for this to go away also. Maybe not right away, DOGE has bigger fish to fry, but soon I bet. Until then, each of those cheap packages will cost us all.
The postal treaties, as I understand things, currently depend on the ‘developing’ country to determine whether or not it is still developing. Strangely enough, the developing countries are loathe to give up that status, since it would move them from getting money to paying it out to those who still have it.