Population adjusted vehicle miles traveled in the first half of 2025 is lower than at the bottom of the Obama travel depression in 1H2014

Ain't got no where to go, I guess, with all that new delivery availability spawned by the pandemic.

 

 

Mad King Ludwig fires BLS commissioner in a fit of rage over his bad jobs numbers, blaming the messenger

I don't recall Obama firing anybody at BLS in 2011 when there were ZERO jobs created in August.

 

 

Banana republic stuff from the Banana Republican.

Trump is unfit to be president.

 

Trump fires commissioner of labor statistics after weaker-than-expected jobs figures slam markets

 

... “I can’t believe what I just saw,” said Peter Mallouk, president and chief investment officer of Creative Planning. Trump’s social media post seemed like a parody or satire at first, Mallouk said.

 

“This is not healthy,” he added. “We can’t have a set of numbers come out and fire somebody that served under numerous administrations in various roles because you don’t like the numbers.”

William Beach, a 2017 Trump appointee and McEntarfer’s immediate predecessor at BLS, also sharply criticized her firing.

“The totally groundless firing of Dr. Erika McEntarfer, my successor as Commissioner of Labor Statistics at BLS, sets a dangerous precedent and undermines the statistical mission of the Bureau,” Beach posted on X.

“This escalates the President’s unprecedented attacks on the independence and integrity of the federal statistical system,” Beach added in a statement. “The President seeks to blame someone for unwelcome economic news.” ...

Population-adjusted total-vehicle-miles-traveled in the United States is lower in April 2025 than at any point in the Obama depression and is down almost 9% since the April 2005 peak twenty years ago

 

Like shooting fish in a barrel, except Obama really did wiretap Trump in 2016-2017: The left attacks Trump for saying Epstein is old news and focus on old Obama news instead

That's how they got Manafort after all.

As ever, it is primarily Trump's own clumsy mouth which is what gets him into trouble and keeps him from respectability, but that doesn't mean he isn't right about Obama. 

 

Ana Kasparian: Trump Telling Us Epstein Is Old News, So Let's Focus On Obama -- It's A Joke

 

 

Different parties, same federal incompetence: Obama's EPA polluted the Animas and San Juan Rivers with 3 million gallons of toxic mine waste, 10 years later Trump's National Park Service burns down the Grand Canyon

Oops.

 

Imagine coming in third to this guy at this point

 

Trump is the Uniparty, floats an Iran policy similar to Obama's

 

Trump administration exploring $30 billion civilian nuclear deal for Iran

 

... The potential deal would mark a major reversal in policy for President Trump, who pulled the U.S. out of the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran in 2018 arguing in part that the sanctions relief and unfreezing of Iranian assets had provided a “lifeline of cash” to the Iranian regime to continue its malign activities. ... 

The U.S. Senate parliamentarian still has not ruled on the GOP's wacky current policy vs. current law baseline

The current policy is the temporary Trump tax cuts from 2017. 

The current law is the tax compromise worked out by Barack Obama and John Boehner.

I don't think this thing is going to be done by the Fourth of July.

 

 GOP’s food stamp plan is found to violate Senate rules. It’s the latest setback for Trump’s big bill

... The parliamentarian’s office is tasked with scrutinizing the bill to ensure it complies with the so-called Byrd Rule, which is named after the late Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., and bars many policy matters in the budget reconciliation process now being used. ...

Some of the most critical rulings from parliamentarians are still to come. One will assess the GOP’s approach that relies on “current policy” rather than “current law” as the baseline for determining whether the bill will add to the nation’s deficits. ...

The truth is buried in the very last paragraph: Obama's war on coal did this to us

Why electricity prices are surging for U.S. households

... certain facilities like old fossil-fuel powered plants have been decommissioned and new energy capacity to replace it has been relatively slow to come online ...

Ted Cruz reminds everyone Tucker Carlson used to be for the annihilation of Iran in 2012 when Mr. My Muslim Faith was in charge lol

 

The average price of gasoline in May 2025 was $3.306 per gallon, 7.2% lower than the average under Biden but still much higher than under Obama or Trump I

Under eight years of Obama gasoline averaged $2.974 per gallon.

Under four years of Trump gasoline averaged $2.488.

Under four years of Biden gasoline averaged $3.563. 

Different parties, same hopium: In September 2012 Barack Obama accepted the Democrats' nomination saying Hope Needs More Time, now Trump says he needs another two weeks to see whether Putin really wants peace in Ukraine

Like Putin's record three-day bombardment of Ukraine last weekend wasn't an answer.

 

House Speaker Mike Johnson's spending bill is in big trouble with the US Senate's Ron Johnson

 

Sen. Ron Johnson: Spending Cuts In House GOP's Budget "Basically A Rounding Error," Adds $22 Trillion In Debt

... You have heard people talk about zero-based budgeting. I'm talking about a budget of $5.5 trillion to $6.5 trillion. Those are options from Clinton, Obama, and Trump (first term), where you just take their actual outlays, plus them up by population growth and inflation, leaving Social Security, Medicare, and interest untouched. That would leave you somewhere between $5.5 trillion and $6.5 trillion. So you start there, but you have to do the work, and you need the time to do the work. ... I think we have enough [senators] to stop the process until the president gets serious about spending reduction and reducing the deficit.

House Republican Chip Roy (TX-21) says the current policy baseline tax assumption of Republican Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho is a load of crap

Chip Roy is right.

The expiring temporary tax cuts of Donald Trump had a cost in 2017, and if renewed they'll still have a cost, which is obvious to everyone with a brain except Mike Crapo and his supporters.

All the focus for Chip Roy is on reducing the spending side, instead of on increasing the revenue side, as is usual with the GOP budget hawks. They never really reduce spending, however, and the deficits get bigger as a result.

Meanwhile it's amusing to watch how today's Republicans are turning themselves into pretzels just to keep the temporary Trump tax code from expiring and reverting back to the Bush tax cuts, most of which were made permanent by John Boehner and Barack Obama.

Reverting would actually be smarter than what we are going to get, which will be more unaffordable tax cuts and bigger deficits and $50 trillion in debt by 2034.

Even Trump knows this, coming out as he did just a few days ago for . . . the Bush tax cuts.

He specifically recommended adding the old 39.6% additional compromise bracket for the rich agreed to by Boehner and Obama on January 2, 2013.

Trump is a redistributionist, after all. He said so just recently.

He knows he has to pay for what he wants to give away to people. And his idea is to soak the rich to pay for it, just like any good Democrat would do.

I say go ahead. Make my day.

 

The 2014 tax brackets, showing the added 39.6% bracket on high incomes

The average price of gasoline in the United States remains Obama-like in March 2025

 

As presidential mandates go, Trump's is very small, smaller than Bush 43's second term and smaller than Carter's

 The top mandates go to Nixon II at 1.61, Johnson at 1.58, Reagan II at 1.44, IKE II at 1.36, and IKE I at 1.24.

The top combined term mandates go to Reagan at 1.34, Nixon at 1.31, IKE at 1.30, Clinton at 1.17, and Obama at 1.12.

Bush 43 I and Trump I have the dubious distinction of sub-one mandates, meaning they failed to win the popular vote. JFK and Nixon I barely squeaked above 1.000.

 

click to enlarge

 

Like Trump, Musk arrogantly dismisses limits on executive power and belittles Congress' power of the purse, Congress wallows in servitude to his seizure of power

 

 ... Asked later that day whether Congress should weigh in on his widespread cuts, Musk responded, “Well, they do have a vote.” ... the administration has privately reassured GOP lawmakers, particularly House Republicans, that DOGE will continue to unilaterally rescind congressionally approved funding whether lawmakers are given the chance to weigh in or not. ...

Here.

Judge John McConnell blocks Trump's freeze on federal grants and loans, citing the executive's usurpation of Congress' power of the purse

 

A second federal judge indefinitely blocked President Trump’s blanket freeze on federal grants and loans, saying the administration “put itself above Congress.” 

U.S. District Judge John McConnell’s preliminary injunction in favor of Democratic state attorneys general adds to a near-identical block imposed by a federal judge in the nation’s capital late last month. 

Both lawsuits commenced after Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a now-rescinded memo that instructed federal agencies to pause grants and loans, a sweeping freeze that covered trillions of dollars of federal spending. 

Under McConnell’s order, the Trump administration is indefinitely prohibited from implementing an across-the-board funding freeze under a different name. Agencies can still limit funding access on an individualized basis under applicable laws and regulations. 

“The Executive’s categorical freeze of appropriated and obligated funds fundamentally undermines the distinct constitutional roles of each branch of our government,” wrote McConnell, an appointee of former President Obama. 

More.

Our servile GOP senators, who have been completely by-passed by DOGE, try to tell Elon Musk that he can't do that lol, now have to ask pretty please from White House chief of staff Susie Wiles

 

What an absolutely contemptible lot.

GOP senators tell Musk DOGE actions will require their votes 

Republican senators told tech billionaire Elon Musk at a closed-door meeting Wednesday that his aggressive moves to shrink the federal government will need a vote on Capitol Hill, sending a clear message that he needs to respect Congress’s power of the purse. ...

Paul and other Republican senators said Musk appeared open to the idea but didn’t seem to expect DOGE’s cuts and workforce reductions would need to come back to Congress for ultimate approval. ...

GOP lawmakers say Musk’s failure to brief them in advance about impending cuts and funding freezes — or to respond to their questions and concerns about actions taken by DOGE — reflected his belief that he thought the administration could largely bypass them by simply impounding funds lawfully appropriated by Congress. ...

Several GOP senators vented their frustrations over Musk’s operating style — especially his team’s failure to respond promptly to their concerns — at a meeting last week with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.

Wiles told frustrated senators they should contact her directly with their concerns over funding freezes and reductions in force pushed by Musk and his team of young engineers.

Sources familiar with Wednesday’s meeting said the GOP senators who complained about Musk and his methods last week were much more cordial when they met with him face-to-face in the wood-empaneled Mansfield Room just off the Senate floor. ...

Since Donald Trump wants to move the goalposts for counting the costs of his tax cuts and for calculating GDP, let's use his dumb ass unemployment rate from 2015 from now on, shall we?

 Donald Trump had one of the worst annual dumb ass unemployment rates in history in 2020: 38.25%.

Every president between Carter and Obama did better than he did.

Get off your ass you losers and get to work.