CSotD: The Adventures of the Stable Genius
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There was a flurry of cartoons and wisecracks yesterday after Dear Leader appeared on the White House roof and wandered around for a bit, talking to the press below. I don’t know that it really indicated much of anything beyond a president with too much time on his hands, but Randy Bish managed to bring in the ongoing topic of taking the car keys away from Grandpa, which seems relevant regardless of how a 79-year-old man wound up on the White House roof.
My big takeaway from the event was remembering a joke about a fellow who was on a business trip and got an email from his wife that said “The cat is dead.” He was upset and wrote back, “You shouldn’t break bad news so abruptly! You should have first sent me an email that said ‘The cat is on the roof.’ Then, later, an email that said, ‘The cat fell off the roof,” and then, in a bit, one that said, ‘The cat is dead'”
The next day, he got an email that said, “Your mother is on the roof.”
It made me stay up late, watching the news for updates.
There are, however, more concerning things to ponder. We need to worry about having someone who doesn’t understand tariffs imposing tariffs and someone who doesn’t understand trade deals negotiating trade deals but underlying it all is concern over someone who doesn’t understand basic math.
It isn’t even “math.” It’s just arithmetic, and as several wags have noted, if he really did reduce drug prices by 1500 percent, it would mean that customers were being paid to pick up their prescriptions.
Aside from his dubious grasp of arithmetic, and his confusion over the difference between an executive order and actual legislative action, he just placed a 15% tariff on prescription medicines from overseas and threatens a 250% tariff, so he’s raising prices, not lowering them.
And to let you know another hazard we face, the NYTimes headlined their coverage “Tariffs on Medicines From Europe Stand to Cost Drugmakers Billions,” which is nonsense, given that — Come on, folks — exporters don’t pay tariffs.
Consumers do.
And consumers can look at the tariffs and decide not to buy imported cheese, but they often don’t have much choice about whether or not to take prescription medicines.
Simple fix, one letter: “Tariffs on Medicines From Europe Stand to Cost Drugtakers Billions.”
Dan Froomkin asks the critical question in this clash of stable geniuses: Why can’t journalists cover democracy like they cover Epstein?
His main explanation is right on: The Epstein scandal is a case in which both sides are in an uproar, which frees the journalists from having to turn the story into both-sides mush. They don’t write about other things like that: If someone says it’s raining, they don’t seek someone to interview who’ll say the sun is shining.
Speaking of which, does anyone really think it’s okay for the Justice Department to fire the lead prosecutor who helped put Maxwell in jail and then send Dear Leader’s former personal attorney to interview her? And if they did, did they also think transferring her to Club Fed didn’t stink to high heaven?
“Are you kidding me?” — often in a less polite phrasing — becomes relevant questioning, and leads to this
Juxtaposition of the Day
Beyl is more specific about the treatment of deportees, though Molina makes it clear enough, and Beyl’s verbal description of the minimum-security facility is matched by Molina’s visual sarcasm. Molina is the superior draftsman, but there’s something appealing in Beyl’s primitive style, given his content.
Either way, the insult to Epstein and Maxwell’s victims is front-and-center. Even if the move wasn’t outrageous enough, victims were supposed to be notified of changes in her status and were not, and the administration had to get a waiver to move her to Club Fed because sexual-assault convicts are not eligible to serve their time there.
Which leads us back to Anderson’s commentary, because you’d have to be an idiot to believe there isn’t some sort of game being played.
Deering makes the crucial point, and it’s not just Epstein and Maxwell’s victims being degraded by this palsy-walsy treatment of their torturer. It’s a message to all victims of sexual assault that they might as well not come forward because this is how it breaks down.
Not just for Virginia Giuffre. For all victims of rape and sexual assault. It’s how we do things.
Banx may be too smart for the room with this one, but the final result of that complex calculation does indeed tell the story for those who notice it.
Espinoza lays it out much more clearly for the slackers in the room, and the only exaggeration is that Stalin had a firmer grip on things when he started monkeying with the facts. But given the craven GOP congress that mindlessly rubber-stamps his half-baked ideas, Trump isn’t all that far behind.
The result is a stream of good news despite the real numbers, and the bad part is that, while the insane, pointless tariffs should kick in soon, putting out doctored numbers on the economy won’t be obvious that quickly, and for those who don’t understand economics but are loyal to Dear Leader, they’ll be touted as evidence of how well everything is going.
Juxtaposition of the Day #2
Take your pick: Kal lays it out in detail, Reynolds offers the view from abroad and Fell points out that Trump’s “deals” aren’t real agreements, just memos indicating a willingness to discuss something sensible with actual trade representatives who understand such things.
What all three agree on is that Dear Leader blows a lot of hot air but accomplishes very little in the way of actual, substantive, binding agreements, and some of his ideas have no relationship to anything that really happens in international trade agreements.
Hardly surprising, given that he’s made it clear he doesn’t understand trade imbalances, deficits or tariffs.
It’s a test of character: If you quit, you’ll be replaced by someone who will go along with the farce, but, if you stay, you become part of the farce.
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