‘Bloated and Fat and Disgusting!’ Trump Closes Cabinet Meeting By Blasting Nation He Leads
Thursday, February 27, 2025
Wednesday, February 26, 2025
Fascist Musk, Fascist Tesla: The electric car company would have been unprofitable for seven consecutive years through 2020 without selling its phony government carbon credits to other dirty automakers
Elon Musk’s business empire is built on $38 billion in government funding
... Musk is one of the greatest beneficiaries of the taxpayers’ coffers. ... He has been a big beneficiary of national industrial policy, especially Democrat industrial policy, through government funding. ...
About a third of Tesla’s $35 billion in profits since 2014 has come from selling federal and state regulatory credits to other automakers. The credits are given to automakers that meet certain standards, including selling a certain percentage of zero-emission vehicles. Tesla is the largest seller of these credits to automakers that don’t meet the standards and want to avoid paying a fine.
These credits played a crucial role in the company’s first profitable quarter in 2013 and its first full year of profitability in 2020, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Without the credits, Tesla would have lost more than $700 million in 2020, marking a seventh-consecutive year with no profits, according to an analysis of SEC filings.
With the credits, the company instead reported a $862 million profit.
While Musk has advocated for ending the EV tax credit for consumers, he has said little about these regulatory credits. ...
Nearly a tenth of government money that has benefited Musk’s companies
comes from agencies in eight states, including California. ...
In 2016, SpaceX’s success in securing federal contracts prompted rival Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin (and owner of The Washington Post), to say in a company meeting: “Elon’s real superpower is getting government money,” The Post reported. “From now on, we go after everything that SpaceX bids on.”
More.
Musk's many government subsidized businesses are just the currently most prominent examples of American fascism. For bigger ones simply look into the defense industry, the energy industry, or healthcare, or Amazon's early no-sales-tax arrangement which allowed it to become the retail behemoth that it is. President Eisenhower warned us about this long ago, but we're so used to it now that we just take it all for granted.
Real capitalism is swallowed up by the combine between the taxation authority holding a gun to your head, taking your money, and giving it to the corporations.
That's the racket. That's the American way.
The National Debt has been at $36 trillion plus change since Nov 21
Three months and counting.
The federal government is expected to blow through $7.266 trillion in fiscal 2025.
That's $20 billion EVERY DAY.
The deficit is projected to be $1.781 trillion in fiscal 2025.
That's overspending of nearly $5 billion EVERY DAY.
We need a 25% spending cut, or a 25% tax increase, or some combination of the two.
But Republicans plan to cut taxes by $4.5 trillion and increase spending on the military, on the border, on deportations, and on energy deregulation (ha ha ha, they have to spend money to make money).
This is not a serious country.
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| https://taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/federal-receipt-and-outlay-summary |
Republicans can't take the heat of townhall meetings angry about Elon Musk, RNC official advises curtailing public engagement after just 37 days of Trump chaos, claims the townhalls are astroturfed
House Republicans hit the brakes on town halls after blowback over Trump’s cuts
... “Obviously we’re very aware of those headlines,” a Republican National Committee official familiar with the dynamics said.
“I don’t know that a specific edict is going to come down from on high that they need to stop or anything, but a message I believe has been clearly sent that this narrative should end very soon,” the official said. “Probably the best way for that to happen is no more town halls. Elon Musk’s work still has the administration’s support, period.” ... “Pathetic astroturf campaigns organized by out-of-touch, far-left groups are exactly why Democrats will keep losing.”
Phony baloney Trump, but I repeat myself, takes credit for Ukraine's success provided under Joe Biden
“Ukraine, I will say they’re very brave, and they’re good soldiers, but without the United States and its money and its military equipment, this war would have been over in a very short time,” Trump added on Tuesday. ... Zelenskyy had also noted that any assistance Ukraine was still receiving was a legacy of the previous U.S. administration under Joe Biden . . ..
Reported here.
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Remember that Donald Trump betrayed freedom in Afghanistan in February 2020 as coronavirus was about to explode, and in Hong Kong in May 2020 as America was about to explode over George Floyd
Betraying Ukraine is just another day's work in February 2025, but the question is, Who will it next be, in May 2025?
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| "We just signed an agreement . . . the Taliban will be killing terrorists." |
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| "Up until yesterday I still believed Hong Kong has the rule of law." |
If our joke of a president Donald Trump weren't a phony baloney plastic banana, he'd end the United Nations once and for all and save us $18 billion+ instead of using it for his own propaganda purposes
The Council on Foreign Relations here says the cost to the US for the UN is north of $18 billion in 2022.
Foreign Policy here says the annual budget for the UN in 2023 is $3.4 billion.
New York City claimed in 2016 that the UN provides an economic benefit to the city of $3.7 billion in 2014, which means US taxpayers subsidize that benefit to New York City.
Meanwhile the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Gaza was infiltrated by Hamas terrorists who participated in the Oct 7 massacre in Israel, which American taxpayers are also subsidizing.
Why is Donald Trump letting this continue?
Why isn't it in the news?
Why isn't DOGE going after that?
Why isn't it a top priority?
Independent voters disapprove of Elon Musk's activities by a 2-1 margin
Reported here:
A Washington Post-IPSOS poll last week found that 49 percent of adults disapprove of the job Musk is doing, contrasting with just 34 percent who approve.
Notably, while Democrats and Republicans broke along predictable lines, independent voters disfavored Musk by a 2-to-1 margin, 52 percent to 26 percent.
Cowardly Republican stooges, but I repeat myself, dummy up on UN vote and Trump appeasement, but Cocaine Mitch comes through
... The two votes on Monday were the latest sign of a dramatic reversal of America’s bipartisan policy since World War II of standing diplomatically and militarily with Europe to defend against the threat of Soviet and later Russian aggression.
It is a shift that congressional Republicans have, with very few exceptions, silently watched unfold.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, issued the most fulsome GOP dissent to date against President Donald Trump’s position on Ukraine.
McConnell, in a statement, called Trump’s unfolding policy reversal
“disgraceful” and “unseemly” and suggested it was a reprise of the
appeasement that led to World War II.
“‘Peace for our time’ is a noble end, but hope that appeasement will check the ambitions of this aggressor is as naïve today as it was in 1939,” McConnell said, referring to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s famous remark after signing the Munich Agreement and Germany’s subsequent invasion of Czechoslovakia. “America is right to seek an end to this war, but an end that fails to constrain Russian ambition, ensure Ukrainian sovereignty, or strengthen American credibility with both allies and adversaries is no end at all.”
Such a “hollow peace,” he said, would “invite further aggression,” a reference primarily to the lesson China might take away from a demonstration of wilted U.S. resolve.
... virtually no GOP lawmakers besides McConnell have directly criticized Trump’s emerging plan . . ..
There's a conservative media blackout on the disgraceful US pro-Russia vote in the UN yesterday, 93 countries vote to hold Russia directly responsible without the US
No stories up at Real Clear Politics.
None at Just The News.
"If we don't cover it, it didn't happen".
Monday, February 24, 2025
In the aggregate US Treasury yields haven't moved much since the end of November, after which duration began to normalize, but looky here
On Nov 29, 2024 the yield curve averaged 4.356 in the aggregate, after which we began to see duration normalize.
On Feb 21, 2025 it averages 4.357.
Now, however, there are seven securities in the Bills category, not just six, with Treasury rolling out the new 1.5-month (6-week) security as part of debt-ceiling-forced "extraordinary measures". There are five in the Notes, and two in the Bonds.
Duration normalization has now partly reversed because of the extraordinary measures, at least on a weekly basis, with yields for Notes once again falling below those for Bills on average on Friday.
If you count just the traditional 1MO, 3MO, 6MO, and 1Y among the Bills, the Bills yield average is nearly identical to Notes at 4.2825.
These falling yields may be both signaling and spurring increased purchasing of UST, including among the Notes to lock in an anticipated disappearance of opportunity as Bills issuance surges to fund the Treasury General Account. The increased issuance of Bills means yields fall across the curve, at least temporarily, as investors lock in.
The special 6-week security rolled out at 4.41 on 2/18 and was paying 4.39 on Friday vs. only 4.15 for the 1Y and 4.42 for the 10Y, the latter's lowest yield all month. Falling yields for the 10Y is a specific goal of the Treasury under Trump. Evidently the temporary 6-week Bill is helping them achieve that . . . for now.
Reported Feb 5 and Feb 6:
Bessent's focus on 10-year US Treasury yield may let Fed off the hook
..."The president wants lower interest rates and ... in my talks with him, he and I are focused on the 10-year Treasury," Bessent said. "He is not calling on the Fed to lower rates. He believes that if we ... deregulate the economy, if we get this tax bill done, if we get energy down, then rates will take care of themselves and the dollar will take care of itself." ...
10-year Treasury yield drops as traders digest news on issuance, fresh data
... The [Treasury] department also said it will be issuing more short-term bills than usual as it uses “extraordinary measures” to keep the government operating while Congress battles over the debt limit. That announcement came despite new Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent previously criticizing his predecessor, Janet Yellen, for issuing unusually large amounts of shorter-term debt. ...
Nutball worlds in collision: Trumpism defends freedom in Europe with its right hand, stabs it in the back in Ukraine with its left, Biden defended freedom in Ukraine with his right, attacked it in America with his left
But The Federalist has its blinders on. Biden baaaaaaad! Trump gooooood!
"Let's see if we can find some naive kid to write a story about it!"
By Defending Free Speech Worldwide, Team Trump Reclaims America’s Global Moral High Ground:
Under President Donald Trump, the suppression of natural rights by Western powers will no longer be ignored by the United States.
Yep, J. D. Vance goes to Europe to beat up on our friends. But suppression of freedom will be ignored, in places like Russia, Saudi Arabia, and China. And above all in Ukraine.
This is the essence of libertarianism: Make the good the enemy of the perfect.
But defending freedom where it really counts would take some courage, and they don't have it.
The author of this article, who graduated from college in 2022 with a BA in political "science", ends it touting the execrable Darren Beattie at Marco Rubio's State Department, a Taiwan surrender monkey.
The article is the second in the queue at Real Clear Politics this morning. One goes there looking for some serious editorial judgment and gets this.
Trump/Vance don't have the moral high ground. They are just the cowardly other side of the same old hypocritical American coin.
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