I love how Maine’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, refuses to kiss Trump’s ass.

White House retaliation against Maine sparks calls for a key official’s resignation - MSNBC

Ideally, at this point, the dispute would be handled responsibly through a legal process. But as The Washington Post reported, the Trump administration appears to have settled on a different kind of course.

When the acting head of the Social Security Administration ordered the termination of two data collection contracts with Maine in late February, a senior official on his leadership team warned him that the move would increase fraud. That didn’t matter, the agency chief responded. It was more important to punish Maine’s Democratic governor Janet Mills.

In an email first obtained by The Washington Post, Leland Dudek, the acting Social Security Administration chief, wrote that Mills was “disrespectful” and “unprofessional” toward Trump. Dudek added that canceling the contracts would lead to an increase in the number of improper payments, but he directed officials to do it anyway.

“Please cancel the contracts. While our improper payments will go up, and fraudsters may compromise identities, no money will go from the public trust to a petulant child,” Dudek wrote, referring to Mills.

The move was ultimately reversed, but the fact that this happened at all led Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, to urge Dudek to resign.

Complicating matters is that the retaliatory campaign was not limited to the Social Security Administration.

Trump’s Department of Education, for example, launched an inquiry against Maine last week, and this week, as The New York Times reported, Trump’s Department of Agriculture said that it had “frozen federal funding for education programs in Maine, the latest in a barrage of actions targeting the state.”.....

These developments come on the heels of the president publishing an item to his social media platform in which he demanded that governor issue “a full throated apology,” adding, “I’m sure she will be able to do that quite easily.”

For the record, Mills told Trump that her state would follow the law. This, evidently, sparked a retaliatory campaign against her home state.

Such tactics are plainly indefensible, though they’re no doubt intended to send an authoritarian-style message to every state: If your governor makes Trump unhappy, you might be next.

This isn’t how the United States is supposed to operate — and it’s not how United States operated before Trump came along.

Officials with Harris County Public Health say the case was reported in a northwest Harris County resident. The patient is said to be under 18 years old and has no travel history.

The case was reported by a commercial laboratory.

Harris County health officials are waiting for a second confirmation from the Texas Department of State Health Services, as per protocol. They are also conducting a contact tracing investigation to find anyone who may have been in close contact with the patient.

Officials say the last confirmed measles case in unincorporated Harris County was reported in 2019. At that time, four people were treated.

Economists say the crude formula the White House used to calculate what it’s calling “reciprocal tariffs” is too simplistic to achieve its goal of wiping out U.S. trade deficits — and, for that matter, they say that goal doesn’t make sense, either.....

The math used to come up with those rates is what experts are lampooning.

A formula released by the U.S. trade representative ties those punitive taxes to the United States’ bilateral trade deficit in goods with each country — in other words, how much more the U.S. imports from those countries than it exports to them. The calculation finds the ratio between the U.S. trade deficit with a country and that country’s total exports to the U.S. It then divides the ratio in half to produce what the administration called a “discounted reciprocal tariff.”

Economists criticized the formula for its assumption that persistent trade deficits are a reflection of allegedly unfair trade practices by U.S. trading partners. They point out that the math apparently leaves out services — which make up the bulk of the U.S. economy and an important proportion of its exports — from calculations of trade deficits, which has the effect of making U.S. trade relationships look more one-sided.

They also say there’s nothing “reciprocal” about the punitive tax rates because they’re disconnected from any actual barriers countries impose on U.S. imports.

“They’ve got an indefensible foundation to an indefensible policy,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the conservative American Action Forum.......

The formula produces significantly different results based entirely on the size of a country’s trade deficit or surplus with the United States, heavily penalizing any nations that have sold more goods here than they have bought. For instance, Vietnam and Cambodia face massive additional tariffs of 46 percent and 49 percent, respectively, because of their large trade deficits with the United States — deficits that sprang up recently in part because companies moved production to those countries when the U.S. government indicated it didn’t want them making goods in China. The European Union, with a more modest trade deficit, faces a 20 percent added tax.
https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1907533090559324204


Meanwhile, countries that don’t have a trade deficit with the U.S. will pay only the flat 10 percent tax imposed on all goods. Countries the White House put in that club include Britain, Brazil and Singapore.

Shortly before returning to the White House, Trump revisited this theme during an appearance at the New York Stock Exchange, referencing a woman who wanted to buy three apples, but as a result of inflation, “she walked one of the apples back to the refrigerator.” (Grocery stores don’t keep apples in refrigerators.)

But more recently, Trump has shifted his attention away from what happens inside grocery stores and toward the word “groceries” itself. Consider the president’s Rose Garden remarks in which he pitched his new policy on trade tariffs.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc/post/3llub5svqod2o
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1907535648577180089

“It’s such an old-fashioned term, but a beautiful term: groceries,” Trump said. “It says ‘a bag with different things in it.’”

Last week, he said something similar, declaring at another White House event that “groceries” is “a beautiful word.”

A day earlier, the president appeared on Newsmax and said, “I haven’t used the word ‘groceries.’ It’s like an old-fashioned word, but really it’s not. And people understand it.”

Around the same time, at a White House Cabinet meeting, he again referred to “groceries” as “an old-fashioned word,” adding, “but it’s a very descriptive word.”.....

Complicating matters, during the 2024 campaign, Trump assured voters that “grocery prices will come tumbling down” if he won a second term. After his victory, Time magazine asked him a rather pointed question: “If the prices of groceries don’t come down, will your presidency be a failure?”

Trump replied, “I don’t think so. Look, they got them up. I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard.”

Maybe the president should just stop talking about old-fashioned bags with different things in them altogether?

Today, Lithuania paid homage to our fallen with a solemn and dignified farewell. In the heart of Vilnius, leaders, Allies, and many supporters gathered in remembrance, honoring the four U.S. Soldiers who are finally returning to their families.

In this time of profound sorrow, we are reminded of the indomitable bond between our nations. The compassion, respect, and unwavering support demonstrated by Lithuania and all who stood with us will echo for years to come.
To our Allies, fellow service members, and everyone who contributed to bringing them home—our deepest gratitude.

The list of famous auto industry flops is long and storied, topped by stinkers like Ford’s Edsel and exploding Pinto and General Motors’s unsightly Pontiac Aztek crossover SUV. Even John Delorean’s sleek, stainless steel DMC-12, iconic from its role in the “Back To The Future” films, was a sales dud that drove the company to bankruptcy.

Elon Musk’s pet project, the dumpster-driving Tesla Cybertruck, now tops that list.

After a little over a year at market, sales of the 6,600-pound vehicle, priced from $82,000, are laughably below what Musk predicted. Its lousy reputation for quality–with eight recalls in the past 13 months, the latest for body panels that fall off–and polarizing look made it a punchline for comedians. Unlike past auto flops that just looked ridiculous or sold badly, Musk’s truck is also a focal point for global Tesla protests spurred by the billionaire’s job-slashing DOGE role and MAGA politics.

“It’s right up there with Edsel,” said Eric Noble, president of consultancy CARLAB and a professor at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California (Tesla design chief Franz von Holzhausen, who styled Cybertruck for Musk, is a graduate of its famed transportation design program). “It’s a huge swing and a huge miss.”

Judged solely on sales, Musk’s Cybertruck is actually doing a lot worse than Edsel, a name that’s become synonymous with a disastrous product misfire. Ford hoped to sell 200,000 Edsels a year when it hit the market in 1958, but managed just 63,000. Sales plunged in 1959 and the brand was dumped in 1960. Musk predicted that Cybertruck might see 250,000 annual sales. Tesla sold just under 40,000 in 2024, its first full year. There’s no sign that volume is rising this year, with sales trending lower in January and February, according to Cox Automotive.....

Developing Cybertruck, including tooling expenses to make it in Austin, probably cost Tesla about $900 million, he estimated. And unlike the company’s other vehicles, like the Model 3 sedan and Model Y crossover, it doesn’t appear that the Cybertruck shares any development and production costs with other Tesla products.....

In the end, Musk cursed the Cybertruck by ignoring the reasons people buy pickup trucks — to haul things around and drive well in offroad conditions. The vehicle isn’t competent at either of those things, as has been endlessly documented in scathing reviews, a steady stream of “Cybertruck fail” videos and a 280,000-member “CyberStuck” Subreddit. Adding to the embarrassment is a developing sub-genre of videos showing stymied Cybertrucks being towed to safety by Ford F-150s or GM Silverados.

“If there's anything the Detroit Three know how to do, it's full-size pickup trucks with extremely loyal buyers,” Mercer said. “He launched Cybertruck into the teeth of the hardest segment to crack.”

Remember when the White House said the case was closed on the Signal chat scandal? The Pentagon's inspector general apparently just opened it back up:

Pete Hegseth's indefensible role in this fiasco is now under investigation.

Soon after, Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” and rejected the suggestion that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth needed to resign, but added that it’s “entirely appropriate” for the Pentagon’s inspector general to take a closer look.

As it turns out, officials at the Department of Defense agreed. NBC News reported:

The Pentagon Office of the Inspector General just announced a subject evaluation into allegations that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used an unclassified commercially available messaging app — Signal — to discuss classified information about military actions in Yemen. ... In addition to looking at whether Hegseth complied with rules governing classified information, the inspector general will also look at whether rules about record retention were followed.

.....The final paragraph of Goldberg’s piece read, “All along, members of the Signal group were aware of the need for secrecy and operations security. In his text detailing aspects of the forthcoming attack on Houthi targets, Hegseth wrote to the group — which, at the time, included me — ‘We are currently clean on OPSEC.’”.....

All of this comes against a backdrop of other damaging headlines about the former Fox News personality, including reports this week that he gave an important Pentagon job to his unqualified younger brother and included his wife in meetings in which sensitive information was discussed, despite her lack of a security clearance.

Earlier this week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declared, in reference to the “Signalgate” fiasco, that “this case has been closed.” It appears that the Pentagon’s inspector general just opened it back up.

The problem is not just that Trump lied while pitching his tariff plans.

It's also the fact that he felt like he had to lie – apparently realizing that the truth wouldn't be good enough.

When “The Rachel Maddow Show” asked Nobel laureate Paul Krugman for his reaction to Trump’s remarks, the economist replied:

Trump’s tariff announcement was full-on crazy. Not only is he imposing higher tariffs than almost anyone expected, but he’s justifying them with completely false claims about other countries’ tariffs. I don’t know where his numbers are coming from, but they have nothing to do with reality. ... It’s a really bad day for the U.S. economy.

At face value, the fact that Trump lied a lot probably seems unremarkable. This is, after all, what he does, and what he’s always done throughout his time in public life. Those who look to this president for honesty and facts clearly haven’t been paying close enough attention.

But if Trump is going to set the global economy — and your retirement savings — on fire, it’s hardly unreasonable to think he should present his vision in a way that had a tangential relationship with reality.

He did not.

Trump said the United States subsidizes Canada with $200 billion a year. That wasn’t true.

Trump said the United States “took in hundreds of billions of dollars” from China thanks to tariffs he imposed during his first term. That wasn’t true.

Trump similarly said tariffs had never before been collected on Chinese goods before he took office. That wasn’t true.

Trump said Canada “imposes a 250-300% tariff on many of our dairy products.” That wasn’t true.

Trump said the Great Depression happened because U.S. officials moved away from tariffs. That was hilarious, but it wasn’t true.

Trump said U.S. inflation rates during the Biden administration were “the highest” in “the history of our country.” That wasn’t true.

Trump said Joe Biden had “the worst approval ratings in the history of our country.” That wasn’t true.

Trump said the United States was “the wealthiest it has ever been” between 1789 and 1913. That wasn’t true.

Trump said Democrats want to cut benefits for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. That’s so bonkers I don’t even know where to start.

To be sure, this is just a sampling of some of the Republican’s most glaring whoppers.....

Remember, Trump had plenty of time to finalize his policy, working out the granular details, considering the economic implications, and determining how best to present his vision to the nation and the world. What he appears to have determined was that the truth wasn’t good enough, and it would be better for him to present his agenda with, in Krugman’s words, “completely false claims” that “have nothing to do with reality.”

The policy, in other words, is terrible. His pitch was about as bad