Trump's biggest tariff, 50%, was on tiny landlocked poverty-stricken Lesotho inside South Africa, over a minuscule trade imbalance of $234.5 MILLION in 2024, which is under a treaty for godsakes

 

Lesotho's exports to the US in 2024 were valued at $237.3 MILLION lol. Trump now wants 50% of that.

King George III, who also was nuts, was a benevolent king to America compared to this guy.

 Trump's biggest tariff was on tiny Lesotho. Here's what to know about the African kingdom.

... Mr. Trump's so-called "Liberation Day" tariffs included a whopping 50% levy on the small, impoverished nation's imports, and the Lesotho government quickly said it would send a delegation to Washington. ...

Lesotho's annual gross domestic product of $2 billion is highly reliant on exports, mostly of textiles, including jeans. ...

The White House claims, by way of [its] formula, that Lesotho imposes 99% tariffs and other barriers on U.S. imports. ...

With an annual gross domestic product of just over $2 billion, Lesotho is largely dependent on South Africa — it biggest trading partner — from which it imports most of its food, selling water in return.

The economy has been heavily reliant on textile exports bound for the United States through the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) trade deal, which provides duty-free access to the U.S. market for some African products. The Trump administration's imposition of tariffs on African nations has raised questions over how likely the White House is to renew the AGOA pact when it expires in September. ...

Now the Trump administration is imitating the most odious revolutionary rhetoric of the Obama administration

 

WH's Karoline Leavitt: Trump "Is Fundamentally Transforming Our Country For The Better"

 

We are fundamentally transforming our country for the better, truly restoring our government, the 27-year old know-nothing says, when they're actually gutting it. 

These people all think they're so smart.

 

They think they're cutting something down to size which is already on its knees. Federal employment today has hardly been lower as a percentage of civilian population in the post-war. The low point was achieved already in 2018. The Leviathan State is a complete myth.

 

If Trump truly restored our government, he'd be hiring dramatically, not firing. 

For all of Trump’s and Musk’s talk of efficiency, their policies will likely slow down the government. The state needs capacity to perform core tasks, such as collecting revenue, taking care of veterans, tracking weather, and ensuring that travel, medicine, food, and workplaces are safe. But Trump seems intent on pushing more employees to leave and making the civil service more political and an even less inviting job option. He bullies federal employees, labeling them as “crooked” and likening their removal to “getting rid of all the cancer.” A smaller, terrified, and politicized public workforce will not be an effective one.

To start, let’s dispense with the notion that the government is too big. It is not. As a share of the workforce, federal employment has declined in the past several decades. Civilian employees represent about 1.5 percent of the population and account for less than 7 percent of total government spending. According to the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, seven out of 10 civilian employees work in organizations that deal with national security, including departments—such as Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security—that the public supports.

The reality is that the federal government has long faced a human-capital crisis. ...

More.

The country is $36 trillion in debt because it is not taxing enough, and hasn't been taxing enough since Ronald Reagan. We pretend we can borrow to infinity for what we want, but we can't afford it all anymore. That is why they're surrendering to Putin, and taking a meat cleaver to DC.

This is not a serious country, otherwise a South African wouldn't be running it.

 

 

 

 

 

Oh gee, what a surprise, Kamala Harris has a radical black anti-American, anti-semitic pastor named Amos Brown, just like Barack Obama had Jeremiah Wright

The guy's so bad Senator Diane Feinstein walked out on him, as did Governor Gray Davis, both Democrats:

At a memorial service for victims of the 9/11 terror attacks held just six days after al Qaeda murdered nearly 3,000 Americans, Brown used the occasion to point the finger at the United States in remarks that, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, "set a lot of people’s teeth on edge" and "left politicians stunned."

"America, is there anything you did to set up this climate?" Brown asked the audience. "Ohhhh—America, what did you do?"

"America, what did you do two weeks ago when I stood at the world conference on racism, when you wouldn't show up?" Brown continued, referring to his participation in the United Nations World Conference Against Racism, which the United States and Israel boycotted citing concerns about anti-Semitism.

Brown’s diatribe jarred a mostly liberal audience, the Chronicle reported, noting that the late California senator Dianne Feinstein (D.) and former California governor Gray Davis (D.) left during his remarks. ...

Brown’s radical politics have also veered into anti-Semitism. He served as a delegate to the 2001 United Nations World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa, and best known for equating Zionism with racism. The United States and Israel walked out of the conference over that resolution, expressing dismay that a conference ostensibly devoted to combating hatred had devolved into a hate fest. ...

He serves on the California Reparations Task Force and has called for cash payments to the descendants of slaves from "billionaires in San Francisco," according to the New York Times.  The pastor held a "Solidarity for Reparations" event at his church in 2022 and told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2021 that "America is a racist country." ...

He has visited Harris at the White House at least twice and told Religion News Service this week Harris remains a "dues-paying member" of his church. "For two decades now, at least, I have turned to you," Harris said of Brown in her remarks to the National Baptist Convention 2022.

The story is here.

Jesse Kelly is the prototypical low IQ barbarian demagogue on the right who wants to destroy everything indiscriminately, akin to Julius Malema of South Africa on the left

Only this guy, who lasted 15 minutes in community college, understands the gravity of the debt situation.

Remember that guy who said "Only I can fix it" ?

Same guy. 

These are the forerunners of Draco. 

This guy has to be screenshot because he routinely deletes his tweets in order to not leave a trail.

 

Shackleton's "Endurance" finally found at the bottom of the Weddell Sea where climate is still the same more than a hundred years later

Battling sea ice and freezing temperatures, the team had been searching for more than two weeks in a 150-square-mile area around where the ship went down in 1915. ...  

The hunt for the wreck, which cost more than $10 million, provided by a donor who wished to remain anonymous, was conducted from a South African icebreaker that left Cape Town in early February. ...

Once the wreck was located several days ago . . ..

Shackleton was tripped up by the Weddell’s notoriously thick, long-lasting sea ice, which results from a circular current that keeps much ice within it. In early January 1915 Endurance became stuck less than 100 miles from its destination and drifted with the ice for more than 10 months as the ice slowly crushed it. ...

The Weddell Sea still remains far icier than other Antarctic waters . . ..

The icebreaker, Agulhas II, left the search area on Tuesday [yesterday, March 8] for the 11-day voyage back to Cape Town.

More.

Why do you think it's taken this long to find the wreck?

Conditions there are as inhospitable now as they have ever been, and are forbidding even to a $10 million expedition using a modern icebreaker and fancy undersea gear with sonar and high resolution cameras and a short window of opportunity of only "several days" to spend documenting the find once they'd found it before having to high tail it out of there.

From departure from Cape Town Saturday February 5 to departure from the Weddell Sea Tuesday March 8 was thirty-one days.

That's the news that's not mentioned by The New York Times, even while mentioning it.

 

Endurance's coal-fired steam engine could make 10 knots

Now that AXIOS finally got its shit together and updated its map for Omicron prevalence, let's check in on variants in Michigan

Delta still dominates in Michigan, as it does in about 12 other states, mostly in the high plains and upper mid-west.

Omicron now dominates in about 14 states, mostly in the south and west.

No other variants register in Michigan on the maps at Axios, nor anywhere else, Jimmy.

Omicron is displacing Delta in America. That's the story.

India Variant, aka Delta

Omicron Variant, from South Africa

So far in 26% fully-vaccinated South Africa, Omicron is turning out to be a giant nothing burger

 The seven day average of daily new deaths was 20 on Nov 24th when Omicron was first identified.

As of Dec 19th, it's 30.

Big whoop.

Omicron variant looks very likely to overcome natural immunity from previous infection

Very few people in South Africa have been fully vaccinated, relatively speaking, roughly a quarter of the population.

So the very rapid rise in new cases there looks likely to include the very large number of the previously infected.

Daily new cases in the 7-day rolling average have absolutely soared, from about 290 in mid-November to almost 8900 by Dec 4. 

There have been almost 2.8 million infections pre-Omicron, and fewer than 1.3% had been reinfected pre-Omicron, according to the new paper discussed in detail here:

World Health Organization protects Xi Jinping's feelings, adopts Omicron for new South African variant B.1.1.529 instead of Nu or Xi

alpha beta gamma delta epsilon

zeta eta theta

iota kappa lambda mu nu

xi omicron pi 

rho sigma tau upsilon

phi chi psi omega

 

This is the first thing you learn in Greek 101, the alphabet. You've got it down when you can say it from memory after lighting a match and you don't burn your fingers, which you will need to write all the funny letters.

Looks like WHO needs to retake the course, however.

This new South African variant, B.1.1.529, will be very confusing since almost a year ago there was a South African variant everyone got hysterical about but it didn't take over the world. The India variant did instead.

That South African variant (B.1.351), was beta, retroactively so designated at the end of May 2021 with all the variants, which is probably why no one remembers it.

The UK variant (B.1.1.7), dominant in the US in April, May, and June, is alpha. 

The gamma variant (P.1), from Brazil, never amounted to much in the US, though that was fear-mongered, too.

The India variant (B.1.617.2) is delta, dominant in the US from July 1.

Epsilon covers variants from California, B.1.427/B.1.429.

Zeta is another Brazilian one, P.2.

Eta and iota cover variants from New York, B.1.526/B.1.525.

Theta was first detected in the Philippines, P.3.

Kappa's another one from India, B.1.617.1, as is B.1.617.3, which oddly hasn't its own Greek letter designation even though it's on radars.

Lambda is from Peru, C. 37.

Mu variants come from Colombia, B.1.621/B.1.621.1.

Nu and Xi are being skipped:

The WHO made the announcement about the B.1.1.529 variant out of Johannesburg, South Africa, passing over a letter many observers presumed would be next — “Nu” — as well as the subsequent letter, “Xi,” which composes part of Chinese leader Xi Jinping‘s name.

I'm looking forward to Beijing being called Peking again one day. 

I mean, who orders "Beijing Duck"?

At any rate, the reality, as one wag put it,  is that they are all Xi variants.

 

And as another answered, the final variant will be communism. 

 

MacArthur was right about China:

Here in Asia is where the communist conspirators have elected to make their play for global conquest. 

 

Elites today everywhere are on their side.

 

 

Idiotic "Governments are considering a fresh round of restrictions, largely against the unvaccinated, to try and curb the spread" when it's the vaccinated who also keep spreading the disease

Scientists in South Africa are studying a recently identified new coronavirus variant that is a cause for serious concern, stoking fears the country may face a potentially severe fourth wave that could spread internationally. ... 

The findings come as several European countries battle a renewed surge in Covid-19 case numbers, with hospitals in some German cities starting to feel the strain. Governments are considering a fresh round of restrictions, largely against the unvaccinated, to try and curb the spread. South Africa is currently on the lowest level of lockdown measures, though the new variant prompted the cabinet and coronavirus council to call a meeting for the weekend.

More. 

The small British protectorate of Gibraltar is closing in on 16k booster doses administered to date since Oct 10 after fully vaccinating the entire island by May 1, but the virus is spreading anyway.

The obvious take-away is that stopping the spread will have to be accomplished by means other than vaccines, IF THAT'S WHAT THEY REALLY WANT.

 

New Coronavirus Variant a ‘Serious Concern’ in

C19 case growth in South America and Asia is out of control, still on the rise in North America with the US case positivity rate soaring

 

The US case positivity rate should concern everyone. It's up over 60% since mid March to 7%. Epidemics are considered out of control at 10%.

The irony is full vaccination in the US is up a nearly identical percentage since mid March.

We continue to hear this is a race against cases, which came down by themselves dramatically without vaccinations, and now are rising quite smartly with them.

This should not be happening if the vaccines work.

The Israelis have released preliminary results of a study showing outsized C19 breakthrough cases of the South African variant in patients who received the Pfizer vaccine, calling into question Pfizer's own claims about this. 

For now, the Pfizer vaccine appears to be the one to get, if you've got the choice, because the coronavirus is mutating

The new Novavax vaccine is just 49% effective vs. the new South Africa coronavirus strain B.1.351 which emerged last October and was just reported in two cases in South Carolina.

Johnson & Johnson's new vaccine is just 57% effective against it.

Moderna says its vaccine is "far less effective against the South Africa strain".

Pfizer's vaccine appears to be the most robust of them all, "only slightly less effective against the South Africa variant compared with the others."

Story here.

Johns Hopkins: The COVID-19 case fatality rate to date in South Africa is 2.99% vs. 1.68% in the US

 Virus variant from South Africa detected in US for 1st time:

The variant first found in South Africa was detected in October. Since then, it has been found in at least 30 other countries.

It is not obvious that the mutation found in October is responsible for the outsized increases in cases and deaths recently observed in South Africa. Both rose in tandem not until the beginning of December, and the mutation could have been present earlier. Seasonal factors may be at work. July is South Africa's winter, January its summer. Elevation moderates summer high temperatures and latitude its winter lows.

White baby on a stick: That's the measured response to crime advocated by the supporters of the communist African National Congress in South Africa

Story.

South Africa racks up two quarters in a row of negative GDP growth under land-grabber Cyril Ramaphosa, new president since February

Ramaphosa's domestic policy is centered around "land reform", i.e. seizing land without compensation. Apparently production is already suffering because farmers are convinced there's no point to going on any longer.

South Africa farm seizure: Terrified white farmers plot escape as crackdown looms:

A RECORD number of white South African farmers have put their land up for sale amid fears the ruling party is considering confiscating properties bigger than 25,000 acres.

By SIMON OSBORNE

PUBLISHED: 07:03, Mon, Aug 20, 2018

UPDATED: 07:26, Mon, Aug 20, 2018

Omri van Zyl, head of the Agri SA union, which represents mainly white commercial farmers, said: “The mood among our members is very solemn. They are confused about the lack of any apparent strategy from the government and many are panicking. So many farms are up for sale, more than we’ve ever had, but no one is buying.” ... Agri SA said about 20 per cent of South Africa’s farms produce 80 per cent of the food that feeds millions of people in southern Africa, and many of those properties would be affected by a 25,000-acre cap.

As long as South Africa legalizes theft of farm land owned by whites, the IMF and the UK's Theresa May are all for it

Reuters reports here.

South Africa was ruled by Britain for a hundred years between 1806 and 1910. White Europeans swelled population through immigration, peaking above 5 million in the mid 1990s. They carved civilization out of a savage environment, for which they get no thanks now because savagery is all the fashion again.

Legalized theft takes different forms in different places at different times, for example through government exercise of eminent domain, or through imposition of an income tax.

In South Africa the plan is to take without compensation, but perhaps with murder thrown in for good measure if Julius Malema gets his way. 

Michael Savage is as lazy as Rush Limbaugh, shoots off his mouth about Obama without reading Obama's full speech in South Africa

Far from stirring up race hatred, Obama was attacking it.

We covered it here. WaPo had the full transcript of Obama's remarks in July. Too bad Savage is too lazy to read it.

Another irresponsible person with a microphone.

CNBC thinks rising number of murders of whites and of farm seizures in South Africa is a fringe talking point, not news

Trump is hyping a fringe talking point about South African government 'seizing land from white farmers':

'At the start of August, Ramaphosa announced plans by the ruling African National Congress to change the constitution to allow the expropriation of land without compensation. ...

'The notion that white farmers are persecuted in South Africa largely stems from a fringe group called AfriForum. Some far-right commentators and pundits have picked up on the idea, suggesting that there could be a "genocide" of white people in the country.' 

Separately, the Australian press puts the number of whites murdered on farms in the last 15 months at 70.

The relatively small number is not important to liberals, any more than is the murder of Mollie Tibbetts in Iowa by an illegal alien, because they claim others who put the number at 400 are exaggerating.

Yeah I know, the Holocaust wasn't 6 million, either. 

Mandela's ANC government in South Africa writes off whites as murderers

I guess Obama's message in July fell on deaf ears:

'It’s not justice if now you’re on top, so I’m going to do the same thing that those folks were doing to me, and now I’m going to do it to you. That’s not justice. “I detest racialism,” [Mandela] said, “whether it comes from a black man or a white man.”'

James Whitman is clearly a man of the left who indicts the entire British patrimony as racist

From an interview Whitman gave to Salon last September:

It is important to note how the United States was not alone in its commitment to the idea of white settler democracy. We find the same phenomenon elsewhere in places colonized by the British. In Australia you see a very similar pattern, New Zealand and South Africa of course, and in Canada as well. That’s part of what I learned in doing the research for this book, and I have to say, it is a troubling and challenging fact that what reemerged with the white supremacists in Charlottesville seems to grow out of a British tradition that we like to think of as a great source of liberty, democracy and equality for the world.

Dinesh D'Souza has been aware for a long time that his source Whitman is a leftist, and he believes Whitman is dishonest because he does not acknowledge the peculiar culpability of southern Democrats in crafting the race laws.