5 thoughts on “Cory Booker’s Long Speech”

1. I remember a time in my teens when I almost got in a fight where I was almost certain to get my butt kicked by a street fighter about 80 pounds heavier. How I didn't get sent to the hospital isn't the point. The creep was at a party with his girlfriend and while she was out of the LR, he was trying to grope a girl who was my friend (not my girlfriend.) 

   Sometimes the right thing to do is pick a fight you will not win as a matter of principle, an attempt to draw public attention to bad behavior. Ignoring it sanctions it – confronting it can raise public disapproval. 

   Booker changed nothing but he confronted Trump for what he's doing in a dramatic way. It's a warning that Democrats are not going to submit. (The lawsuit filed today will have more historical weight but Democrats and Independents needed to see somebody show some spine. (Bernie and AOC have also stood up against Trump and drawn record crowds.) 

   Oh, I want to finish the story. I was persuaded to leave the party with a couple of friends, including the girl, But I promised I'd be back. While I was gone, three other friends took the guy aside and told him if  did return and there was a fight where I got the tar kicked out of me, before the bully left the party, he'd have to face the three of them at the same time. When I got back, he didn't want to fight and I gratefully accepted.

   So all the noise was for nothing, or was it? I showed that I'd stand up. I didn't know for months that my friends showed they'd stand up for me. The bully found out that in some circles, being a creep could catch up to him. So my hats off to Senator Booker for taking a courageous and difficult stand. It will inspire others that resistance is not futile. 

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2. 11:45 pm Tue night.
   Susan Crawford won the Wisconsin Supreme Court race (projected winner) at approximately 55% to 45%.

   The two FL congressional races are called for the Repubs. Both races were around 57% – 43%; both districts went for Drumph by 30+ points (that would be about 65% – 35%). That's a swing of 8 points in two deep red districts.

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3. NFS, a three-letter acronym that is a tranny killer if the vermin are transactional.  Transactional is, at times, just a nice way of saying corrupt as I have been told.  At least Wisconsin people understand this and act accordingly, restoring some faith in at least some of the electorate.  By a ten-point margin the Wisconsin people refused to sell Democracy out and indicated some things are just Not For Sale.  

   Without that and Cory Booker's stand, the option of resisting the Oligarchy appeared futile.  Two court decisions are huge mistakes.  One of these is Citizens United.  The other the ruling about presidential behavior and the law.  Let's just call it what it is, The Nixion Nonsense, that nothing the president does can be considered as illegal.  You can add the -when acting as president- nonsense if you want, but we now see that is negated with a sold-out congress.  It would work if congress was NFS but that is not reality.  

   The courts and the electorate are finally understanding that these two errors are not corrected all of justice will become nothing but fantasy, and the United States will end up as a total Oligarchy quite quickly.  Turkey is acceptable as Thanksgiving fare, but not as a model for the US government.  We best model the folks of Wisconsin in every state.  

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4. Today is Tariff Day aka Liberation Day though no one can say just exactly from what oppression we are being liberated.  It is not the Chicken Tax for sure.  

   Eduardo Porter wrote today in the WP of the chicken tax under a headline foreboding the end of the US auto industry accelerated by projected and recently imposed tariffs.  

   An entertaining example of this pampering is the so-called chicken tax, a 1960s-vintage tariff of 25 percent on light trucks that was originally aimed at German Volkswagen Kombi minivans and pickup trucks, levied in retaliation against a European tariff on American chicken. Applied across the board to satisfy global trade rules, it has remained on the books.

   It goes a long way toward explaining the idiosyncratic structure of the American auto market.

   Protected by the chicken tax, U.S. automakers focused on building pickup trucks such as the Ford F-150 series and other muscular SUVs classified as light trucks, which today account for some four-fifths of all new passenger vehicle sales. Cars, behind a meager tariff of 2.5 percent, became pretty much an afterthought. One outcome is that the American brands make some of the least fuel-efficient passenger vehicles on the planet. Another is that they have lost much of their appeal in critical foreign markets, where people are not only concerned about climate change but also often prefer to drive cars — whether due to higher gas prices, narrower roads or other considerations.

   That was 65 years ago when we quit making small and efficient vehicles in the US.  Tariffs helped us get there.  Small and efficient vehicles were ceded to other countries and are now the world standard.  Norway has gone almost entirely electric.  Who now, knowing that fact, think that tariff was a good idea other than oil exporters.  There is always laughable garbage rhetoric about tariffs on a given country's oil.  Oil is fungible.  You get to know only who is selling it not where it was produced.  You are just creating a playing field for corruption, which may be the hidden goal.  Oligarchs might like that, but the vast majority of US citizens get the shaft.  

   Porter continues with what we hope are unintended consequences of government tariff meddling.  The US auto industry headed for an island status, with only a limited national market if any at all.

   The immediate consequence from Trump’s new levies will be sticker shock on the lot. Though the United Auto Workers leadership supports the tariffs, its rank and file is already worried about layoffs, too, as higher prices and snarled supply chains (given new tariffs on car parts crossing North American borders multiple times) hit demand and gum up production. But the overall damage to the industry is likely to be much more significant.

   The auto industry is reaching a moment of truth. Climate change is boosting demand for electric vehicles around the world. China is not only the leader in this industry. It also owns the pipeline, from mining and processing of minerals that go into batteries to battery production and the final manufacture of cheap electric cars. Its leading EV manufacturer, BYD, claims to have developed a super-fast charging system, removing one of the main roadblocks to the adoption of electric vehicles. China is building humongous cargo ships to transport cars to markets around the world.

   Americans don’t buy cheap Chinese cars, which are walled off with tariffs and other barriers imposed in the first Trump administration and continued by President Joe Biden. But American automakers just can’t compete with Chinese EVs in many markets overseas. The BYD Seagull, for instance, is expected to retail in Europe for less than half the price of Tesla’s cheapest option. If Trump removes tax incentives to purchase domestic EVs, it’s not crazy to believe that the other American manufacturers will abandon them entirely.

   Magical thinking seems the only way this liberates anything, unless not having a viable auto industry in this country at all is the goal.  The chicken tax got us on that path over 60 years ago.  We still have some auto industry viable and surviving.  With a little "liberation" that too could be gone soon.  

   Opinion | Trump tariffs will hurt American auto manufacturers – The Washington Post

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5. Well happy that the WI supreme court went to the democrat. First to save WI from the pit of wing-nut magats and secondly maybe more importantly to hand that slimy sack of shit Eloon an embarrassing defeat. I read somewhere that some GOP'ers were hoping Eloon's candidate would go down so they could begin the task of kicking him to the curb. Who could have dreamed that a ketamine addicted mentally challenged freak show billionare firing tens of thousands of middle-class workers at random and trying to buy statewide elections would be unpopular!

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HKNAhAxMAk

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