On today’s BradCast: “Irrational exuberance” reigned on Wall Street as of 1:18pm Eastern Time. Though, after the past week of our moronic President’s idiotic “economic policy” crashing the markets day after day after day, it’s hard to blame investors for over-celebrating even the smallest hint of a respite from his imbecility. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]
FIRST UP… Before we get to Trump (sort of) backing down from his worldwide (except for Russia) trade war, a bit of an addendum today to my disturbing conversation on yesterday’s program with Slate’s legal ace Mark Joseph Stern. He and I were both in general agreement on Tuesday that the Supreme Court’s horrible 5 to 4 ruling on Monday night — in a case challenging the deportation and foreign imprisonment of Venezuelan migrants without due process under Trump’s peacetime use of the wartime Alien Enemies Act of 1798 — allowed for the detention and foreign imprisonment of not just migrants but of U.S. citizens without due process as well.
Today, preeminent Constitutional law scholars Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of UC-Berkley’s Law School, and Laurence Tribe, Emeritus Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard, argued an almost identical case in a New York Times op-ed headlined “We Should All Be Very, Very Afraid”.
So it’s not just some progressive radio dude and a legal reporter at a lefty-ish Internet publication issuing such a warning this week. Thus, I felt a need today to underscore that important point once again before it too gets lost in Donald Trump’s ongoing authoritarian chaos.
For what it’s worth, even a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas on Wednesday has now temporarily blocked the deportation of Venezuelan migrants under Trump’s Stalin-like implementation of the Alien Enemies Act. Details on today’s program.
THEN… The roller coaster on Wall Street continued on Wednesday, though at least much of today’s ride was an upswing for a happy change. After four and a half days of market blood-letting following Trump’s ridiculous “Liberation Day” pronouncement of major sanctions against virtually every nation on Earth (except for Russia) last week — and with the bond market tanking as well and economists warning about a likely recession — President Super Genius finally backed down, at least partially, as he always does.
Despite a remarkable, immediate spike in the major market indexes in response, within minutes after Trump’s lie-filled social media post about his “90 day PAUSE”, investors may soon begin to realize that the news isn’t quite as good as they might have hoped. Trump (for today anyway), is leaving in place 10% tariffs against pretty much everybody (except Russia) and now claims to be raising tariffs against China to 125%, because they dared match the previous sanctions he’d declared against them.
In all, though it was unclear as of this afternoon whether Trump was dropping his 25% or 35% or 10% tariffs against our largest trading partners, Canada and Mexico, if Trump keeps in place the current 10% tariffs against most of the world, and his 125% tax on goods imported from China, it seems that the inflationary cost to American consumers will be just about what it was before Trump choked this afternoon. Even after today’s spike, the Dow remained about 10% lower than its all-time record set during the Biden Administration.
How that — or any new brain farts from President Stable Genius — affects the market in coming days remains to be seen.
In addition to the financial cost of Trump crashing the economy, there has seemingly been a political cost as well to President Make-It-Up-As-You-Go-Along as well, resulting in what Politico last night characterized as a “House Republican mutiny” that threatens to hold up (post air: sure enough!) or even block all together, his massive, deficit-exploding tax cuts for his wealthy friends and their corporations.
How will Trump’s partial flip-flop on tariffs affect his political fortunes on the massive GOP budget plan? Stay tuned. Though keep your hands and arms inside the roller coaster at all times until this madness comes to a complete stop…whenever that may be…
“Missouri Rep. Eric Burlison, a House Freedom Caucus member who was in the room, said he and other skeptics don’t trust the Senate, and need guarantees there will be bigger cuts in the final bill.” (NPR).
The billions that were to be cut to innumerable Medicare accounts was not deep enough for the “Freedom” Caucus.
No longer “Gadda do vida” it now “Gaza da vida”
“… scholars Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of UC-Berkley’s Law School, and Laurence Tribe” filed an amicus brief arguing the “it can’t happen here” trance.
The NOEM v GARCIA case answers the question “Will they be activists?” (Here Come De Conservative Judges, 2009).
Looking forward to it:
(AP news).
Will The Military Become The Police? – 12