Questions Of The Day (Politics)

[Mick Harper]

Poor old Steven Pinker got the runaround on Newsnight. He found himself wearing too many hats when being grilled by Nick Watt.

[Wile E. Coyote]

The three judge panel on the U.S. Court of International Trade have decided that the broad set of tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump earlier this year, exceeded the statutory limits of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

Wiley reckons that this means in laywolf terms, there was no national economic emergency that warranted the President applying, then (err) pausing, worldwide tariffs without bothering to get boring old Congressional approval etc.

Indeed it seems that some folks were more alarmed by the imposition of the tariffs than the fact that the US imports a lot of cheap stuff from abroad so, as is the American way, have taken legal action.

There are going to be a lot of Republican business folk that are silently hoping that Trump's appeal is not successful.

[Mick Harper]

[Wile E. Coyote]

Trump has appealed, the tariffs remain in place pending the appeal. So it's now total chaos, its going into the Amercan legal process. It's going to end in the Supreme Court. More uncertainty for consumers, companies, countries negotiating with Trump, as now they have to factor in not just that Trump is changing his mind every couple of weeks, but the courts might throw out some or all of his tariffs as not "emergency". It's a case of waiting and seeing if it is posible for companies to seek reimbursement for past payments under the Trump tariffs, if the Supreme Court decides the President has exceeeded his authority. The three judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade that took the decision was made up of one Reagan appointee, one Obama appointee, and one (not good) Trump appointee....


Its also a near certainty that after the mid terms, if the Democrats regain control of Congress, they will try and impeach Trump again, and tbh Trump is probably hoping that they will, as his numbers will surely go up.

[Mick Harper]

Or he could just get the Republican-controlled Congress to pass a one-line bill authorising him to do all this. In any sensibly organised country, tariffs are strictly a matter for the government, not the concern of either the legislature or the judiciary. (Memo to the Founding Fathers.)

Also, the current froth is just a way of speeding up otherwise interminable nation-to-nation trade deals. I am not endorsing any particular arrangement but I am endorsing the notion that the current system of 'free trade with too many knobs on' needs wholesale reform.

[Mick Harper]

The pundits are getting Starmer's strategy all wrong. Labour will only get elected when the right is divided. So with Reform currently ahead of the Conservatives, Starmer is attacking Farage, allowing the Tories to catch up (with Reform, not Labour). When they do, he will go after Badenough. And so on, see-sawing for four more years of judiciously balanced attack.

Starmer is getting his strategy all wrong. The one thing Labour must avoid if they want to get re-elected is for the Tories and Reform to be neck and neck, 20% each. With neither of them in with a chance, they will have no choice but to go for an electoral arrangement. Which will sweep the board.

Only when one or other of them is at ten per cent--just enough to scupper the other's chances of a majority but not worth the price of a pact with the devil--will Labour sweep the board. As it did last time with a derisory 33% of the vote.

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

Everyone always ignores the AE advice about a priori-ism. So for the last eighty years it's been free-trade-for-all. Now it's protectionism-is-best. The truth is, as always, horses-for-courses.* Country-by-country, product-by-product, year-by-year.

But even so, there are broad parameters, viz
1. Free trade is good for top dogs (China, please note).
2. Protectionism might be necessary for sunset countries (Trump's opponents, please note).
3. Trade agreements between countries take so long they are always* out of date. (UK, please note.)
4. Trading blocs are overrated (everyone, please note).

* This breaks the AE a priori rule. Sometimes it isn't.

[Mick Harper]

* If you knew someone was being persecuted, would you try and help them escape?

* Would you do your best to get them to a place sympathetic to such people?

* As eighty percent of Channel-crossers are given asylum status eventually you had better not help them because you will be arrested as part of 'an asylum gang' that the British prime minister is intent on 'smashing'.

[Mick Harper]

The arrest and two-year prison sentence given to one of the Newsnight grooming gang victims when she was a sixteen-year-old (she was accused of helping the gangs recruit other teenage girls) is powerful support for two of my contentions:

1. The grown-up liberal world has no conception of what life is like for teenage female malcontents in northern towns.
2. The grown-up liberal world has no conception of how groups of teenage female malcontents in northern towns are internally organised.

You might say I don't either but news that dozens of police forces are being ordered by the Home Secretary to reinvestigate hundreds of grooming cold cases in which the words 'No Further Action' is stamped on the docket suggest the police have a rough idea.

[Mick Harper]

Tesla lost half their sales on news that Elon Musk had shacked up with Donald Trump. It will lose the other half now Elon Musk has turned against the president. The man's a genius. He's been shorting Tesla stock since January.

[Mick Harper]

Andersen Cooper: Were you surprised by the Ukraine drone attacks on Russian nuclear bombers using truck-trailers, General?
General Crystal: No, I wasn't, Andersen. Ukraine are known for their innovatory tactics.

Balls, Crystal.

[Mick Harper]

The US Defence Secretary is in town for the NATO summit. He wants us all to hike our defence spending to five per cent of GNP. We have all been in a tailspin getting it up to two per cent.

Pete Hegseth is clearly not an AE-ist. We don't believe in 'one-size fits all' policies. Every country, including Mr Hegseth's own, spends money on defence depending what they are... er... defending. Poland, for example, is currently nearing five per cent. Spain told Hegseth in no uncertain terms they weren't prepared to go to two per cent. I wonder why.

The US is defending its role as world policeman. Five per cent is cheap at the price. Germany is upping her ante because it wants to be Europe's policeman. France and Britain are upping theirs because they don't want Germany to be Europe's policeman. Poland doesn't want to be policed by Russia. Spain couldn't give a monkeys. And so on and so forth, country by country.

[Mick Harper]

Who ya gonna call?

President Trump called in the National Guard when the Los Angelenos defied him. They didn't get the message, so he summoned the Marines who are currently standing by. Failing that, the Screaming Eagles--the 101st Airborne Division--can be flown in at short notice from Fort Bragg. 'Dropped in' might send the message en clair.

If that doesn't work the oracle, tactical nuclear weapons could be employed on a piecemeal basis but to wipe out this nest of liberals once and for means... the North Koreans.

[Wile E. Coyote]

It's a few blocks in LA county, I don't think it's the whole 3.8 million Los Angelinos. A lot appear to be press, or folks trying to get pictures on their phones. I would have thought it was counter-productive to shoot rubber bullets at the international press, but there you go, folks in uniforms are just as subject to crowd madness, especially when anarchists have started lobbing rocks and burning vehicles.

Wiley would call in Tláloc the god of rain.