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Tariffs are generally are intended to make imported goods more expensive to favour local manufacturers who are competing with those same goods. It's the country imposing the tariffs that pays them. Seems like a dumb idea to me except maybe in special circumstances.

No tax on tips and overtime expire in December2028 but tax breaks for the rich don't expire. That's not good. Finding waste and fraud in government is a perennial aim of all parties but DOGE was a complete financial and moral failure. What he wanted tariffs to do was punish countries he thought were taking advantage of the USA because he didn't understand how trade worked. By nature, he's pathologically opposed to cooperation for mutual gain.

You're right. He's been a roaring success based on those measures. I was thinking more about what might have been seen as good in terms of his official job, the one he never understood and still doesn't.

The only good thing I think Trump has done is stop uncontrolled migration across the border. Everything else has been a disaster for the country and the world.

Even though the new crowd won't be sworn in for a while, it looks like a pretty decisive result so a lot of the current Republicans in the House and Senate will start to mentally abandon the leaking Trump ship and may be a bit more willing to stick their heads above the parapet. Mike Johnson's future as Trump's doormat might also be a bit more shaky.

Rubio will have to do a lot of work to make people forget his dismal performance to date and nobody likes Vance because he's a shape-shifting zealot.

Trump and the GOP are not having a good day so far, but I wonder what they're plotting.

I've asked it to do engineering calculations. It's pretty good but it's like having a graduate engineer working for you. You've got to check what it's telling you but it's still impressive.

It's smarter than me. I couldn't even understand your simple instruction.

I think that’s very likely but Trump also sees Putin as the gold standard for the type of political leader he wants to be and wants to do business with, and is frustrated by being pushed to impose sanctions instead, and has someone in Zelensky who stubbornly won’t give him what he wants and was responsible for him being impeached.

Hope you make a bit of money on this palatial residence one day.

The Russians are obviously well aware of how they've played Trump for the fool that he is. The other point is that the 300,000 tonnes very likely hasn't cost them anything. It's highly unlikely to be additional production, but more likely just the fuel they were intending to produce anyway and would have shipped to the market using their shadow fleet. Now it will just go out in a different tanker with a receipt from the US government to make it look legitimate. Not only that, it's not even going to the US. It's going to the world market, which means the small quantity involved will make even less difference to fuel prices anywhere. Trump will pay them $4 billion and effectively get nothing in return except maybe a thank you note from Putin for his birthday present. The Russians must be very happy with this deal.

This is the Russian perspective on Trump's diesel deal:

They will just pay Trump to sell them pardons.

Works for me too, although I don't have an account. I sometimes click on the links that Red posts but generally try to avoid FB as much as possible.