Tracking toy tariffs

You're absolutely right. Now that you mention it, the obstinance is staggering. I remember in seventh grade, I messed around so much and my social studies teacher handed me my report card with the low D in his class while he gleefully said "Looks like you're slitting your own throat!"

If I didn't still hate that man, I'd be using that line daily anymore.
 
Senators Cantwell and Grassley have introduced a bill called the Trade Review Act of 2025 which would require presidents to notify Congress of an increase in tariff rates within 48 hours and would have to explain his reasoning behind the increase. Congress would then vote and if they rejected the new tariffs they would die immediately. If Congress doesn't approve said tariffs they expire in 60 days.

Some Republicans are already saying they don't like the tariffs at all, including (shocker) Trump sycophant Ted Cruz. However Trump can veto anything Congress passes unless they have enough support to override the veto (would require around 20 Republicans in the Senate and 80 in the House).

Plus you have weirdo Democrats like Fetterman where you have no idea how they are going to vote.

I could see the Senate mustering up enough for a veto override but the House is full of lunatics and 80 is a high mountain to climb right now. After things get bad and they start to hear from their constituents? Who knows.
 
I always thought Xennials were 1980 on, but I do find there's that really intense cultural connection with 1977-1980 or so. (Can we be the A New Hope generation, since we were all born in the window between Star Wars and Empire? :) ) I have decided we need to stop clinging to generational differences in ethics and morals though. Yeah we've got Boomers destroying the economy but we have Boomers becoming dictators, Gen-Xers running prison camps, Millennials committing war crimes, and Gen Z kids dismantling basic functions of government. Everybody is the same as someone being terrible.

I think the past ten to 15 years have really cemented in that there are a hell of a lot more me-first, me-only people in the world than a lot of people realized. One of those things I wish I'd been wrong about (I used to get so much grief for my pessimism when I'd say at least half of people don't care at all about other people, probably most). If anything, we can really say that the thought that the arc of history curves toward good isn't accurate.

I was the editor of an infection control magazine for years prior to COVID and gawd, the private conversations I had with infection preventionists and immunologists about how the only solution was to just *care about other people.*

I just pulled out of the grocery store parking lot and the car in front of me had a bumper sticker "Fauci kills puppies." It's 2025. These people never let go of a grudge. It's pathological.
 
I was the editor of an infection control magazine for years prior to COVID and gawd, the private conversations I had with infection preventionists and immunologists about how the only solution was to just *care about other people.*
You're right, and Covid was really eye opening for me in that respect even just in my social circles.
I just pulled out of the grocery store parking lot and the car in front of me had a bumper sticker "Fauci kills puppies." It's 2025. These people never let go of a grudge. It's pathological.
And Let's Go Brandon stickers will still be popular for the next decade too... for some reason. I'm surprised But Her Emails finally went away. At least from what I can tell.
 
It really is the “me first and me only, or at least me over you” attitude that is the true killer, and it’s mobbed right up with the “American Exceptionalism” myth that many of us were raised with. The collision of selfishness, “rugged individualism”, and nationalism.
I always think of T.H. White’s description of the obsessive, obstinate tribalism in The Once and Future King: “For him it was then as it was always to be: Up Orkney, Right or Wrong.”
Like we really have had a national theme of “it’s OK to only enrich yourself (or your family, your business, whatever other satellite you are using to justify your self-interest) at the expense of people around you, and it’s THEIR prerogative to do the same to you”, or, as we say in ‘polite’ society: “it’s just business”.

And to be quite frank, “it’s just business” or any derivative of same, INCLUDING “I gotta look out for myself and/or my family at the expense of other people” is a MASSIVE moral/ethical failure, and on a societal level it is utterly poisonous. We moved away from that modality as a society a long time ago because it doesn’t work at all, even leaving out how sociopathic it is to even THINK that way.
And yet it is totally normalized here and has been my whole life.
I don’t think anything gets better until we rework our perceptions to start thinking of PEOPLE instead of individual PERSONS.
 
And yet it is totally normalized here and has been my whole life.
When I was learning more about some Native tribes, the mentality of how they operated really took a bit for me to wrap my head around because of how normalized it is here and now to be utterly selfish. Idiots with no skill or talent yet are rich 'deserve' it and are even looked up to... for some reason. Something we should all aspire toward.

Meanwhile, I know the philosophies of some Native tribes would be seen strictly as Socialism by some, but I just kinda have to shrug. Some welfare states seething about socialism isn't really something I feel like worrying that much about. I dunno... the whole "the only way to ensure everyone has enough is to share" concept is so pure and wonderful and yet impossible.
 
Well when the age of much of Congress that too is possible.
Which brings up term limits, or at least age limits. I think it was Dennis Miller who said they don't even let their grandfather be in charge of the remote control, why are we letting these people dictate anything for the country?
 
And I think a lot of the cultishness is because so many Americans think they're one good day away from being super rich so they want rich people to retain the right to punch down, not acknowledging they are one much CLOSER day away from being homeless than being wealthy and maybe we should do something about that.

Retaining the right to abuse people once we get ours is a fine American tradition, ain't it.
 
Tl;dr: the U.S. Constitution isn't a very good foundational document.
Thankfully we don't have any deeply entrenched national myths about it being infallible or we'd really be in trouble...
We have this discussion a lot. It's the paradox of tolerance. For a long time now, the difference between the left and the right has gone beyond tax policy. It's gay rights, trans rights, immigrant rights, etc.
I'm so glad someone else went here. I started a post talking about this and I just got too wound up to execute it. I'm so very tired of "some people just think different" when the stuff they're thinking is some folks shouldn't be able to marry or take a piss in peace. Yeah, I'm intolerant of those ideologies, and the folks who stump for them whether they personally believe it or not.
Xennials are a little micro-generation born between 1977 and 1983. I'm right in the middle at 1980. Sounds like some of you are too.
'83 represent. It's funny because I've always been told I was just a very old Millennial, but recently learned the Xennial term right after one of my student workers at the university told me I was "one of the most Gen-X people" he's ever met. I *think* he was complimenting me, either that or simply commenting on how often I cuss.
 
I've missed a bunch and while I would love to give my thoughts on a lot of what was said - I'd have to post a medium-sized book. Suffice to say, I'm with most of you guys on a lot of this. Honestly, I'm probably more of a left-wing extremist than anything I've seen anyone saying so far. The reality is that both sides have failed us, because both sides have the same boss. As long as that is the case, nothing is going to change in any meaningful way for the majority of people. What we need now, if we can't have full-scale revolution and the removal of all people that have decided they don't want to be part of an actual society, is so complex that it will never happen.

That's the problem when you get the 'got'cha' questions from Republicans about 'well, how would YOU fix X issue.' Because you can't JUST fix X issue. You need to fix A, C, R, X, and Z issues. Because they're all combined to create the problem. Something that would definitely help is far clearer law concerning how the branches of government may operate in relation to each other and what recourse exists when they don't, term limits for ALL positions in government, and age limits for ALL positions in government. The average age in the united states is under 40. The average age of Senators is over 60. The last three presidents (if we include Trump twice) were 70, 78, and 78.
It's flat out fucking disgusting that this keeps happening.

Also worth noting that Republican presidents have always skewed significantly older than Democrat presidents. For a thousand reasons that would take too long to write out but are 100% obvious and predictable, just as they are awful.

Also also... Democrats fucking suck and I'm sick of the attitude that if you hate Republicans you must love Democrats. No. I just recognize that a useless politician is a better option than a violently evil one. And yeah, I absolutely have no problem 'demonizing' the Right. They are literal fucking Nazis. Not that figurative 'I'm gonna use a loaded word for impact' kind of Nazis. Actual eugenics-shouting, others-hating, Nazi-saluting fucking Nazis. They're ACTUAL Nazis. Fuck off if you're gonna come here and tell me this both-sides bullshit. One side are worthless capitalists. The other side are kidnapping legal US residents and selling them into slave-jails in other countries while trying to send women to jail for having miscarriages.

Frankly, I'm always going to be inclined to believe anyone selling this 'both sides' narrative, or saying they 'want to understand both perspectives' are either deeply stupid or sweeping for behaviours and actions that they simply won't admit that they agree with.


I'll 'hear out' the other side to the extent that I want to know why people vote the way they do. Absolutely. I think a lot of right-wing people are not evil. They're fucking stupid. But let me be clear; It is either one, or both. It HAS to be. You cannot vote for people like Trump, McConnell, etc and NOT be at least one of those two things. And I say that as someone that HAS listened to these people. I have done my utmost to understand where they're coming from and why they think and believe and vote the way they do.
The answer is always the same; they're always either just as evil as their politicians, or too fucking stupid to actually have any idea what's going on. Often, unfortunately, it's been a strong mix of both. And fuck those people. I don't feel bad calling them what they are. They're literally destroying my country and pretty much the entire world - without hyperbole.
 
Honestly, I'm probably more of a left-wing extremist than anything I've seen anyone saying so far.
Oh I'm here for spicy leftist stuff.
Also also... Democrats fucking suck and I'm sick of the attitude that if you hate Republicans you must love Democrats. No. I just recognize that a useless politician is a better option than a violently evil one.
Word. I vote dem as harm reduction and little else. They are, by and large, just as deeply corrupted by the system, they simply come out ahead on *some* social issues and they favor a *slightly* less feudal version of corporate control. I have no idea how, shy of a widespread revolt (which I think is unfeasible for a variety of reasons), we'd extricate corporate interest from our system, but I'll take a simple corporatist over a ethno-nationalists or theocrats any day of the week.
 
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