As mentioned in yesterday’s LinkSwarm, Trump has offered temporary tariff relief for everyone…except China. China got hit with even higher tariffs. Evidently the only “trade war” that is happening right now is with China…and China is losing.
Behind the global economic chaos provoked by president Trump’s tariff tsunami, there are growing indications of a strategic purpose. It is now conceivable that plunging into, and then retreating from, a generalised trade war was actually a deliberate means to a truly geostrategic end: to thwart China’s ambition to replace the US as the dominant world superpower.
While Trump’s public statements still chiefly concern the need to impose economic measures to correct decades of unfair foreign trade, senior US officials, including Pete Hegseth, defence secretary, and Scott Bessent, treasury secretary, are increasingly taking a more strategic geopolitical line.
In late January, Hegseth told the US armed forces that America would “work with allies and partners to deter aggression in the Indo-Pacific by communist China”. In Panama, he said that Beijing was investing in the region for military and economic advantages. “War with China is certainly not inevitable … But together we must [deter] China’s threats in this hemisphere.”
Bessent has linked recent US tariff tactics with a shared geostrategic pushback against China, stating that “we can probably reach a deal with our allies, and then we can approach China as a group”.
In this light, the suspension of tariff combat for 90 days with most countries, while doubling down on the levies imposed on China, leaves Beijing isolated and in the firing line.
So far, after reciprocal gestures and vowing to “fight to the end”, Beijing has focused mainly on rallying anti-US sentiment across the globe. But India and Australia declined to join forces with China. ASEAN remains caught between opposing powers. The EU, in a quandary over Russia and Ukraine, likewise continues to hedge.
China has long sought to frame the West as a feeble, fragmented anachronism. Is it conceivable that, by unleashing economic fire and fury on friends and then provisionally reining it in, Trump might succeed, where Western multilateral diplomacy failed, in forcibly forging a credible consensus of opposition to the threat of global Chinese hegemony?
One assumes that Washington understands that it cannot prevail over China alone and a substantive US pivot to the Asia Pacific to press home a contest with China is starting to emerge. Trump has already reached out to Japan and South Korea, and US officials have tackled Vietnam. The Philippines, in striking distance of any hostilities over Taiwan, support the US and talk about preparing for war.
Taiwan, South Korea, India, Japan, Vietnam, Philippines: It’s like a greatest hits of nations that have bad blood with China. It’s no wonder they’ve chosen to trade with the world’s biggest economy rather than a historical enemy with designs of territorial expansion.
The developing world now faces a binary choice, and ruthlessly exploited debt and resource dependencies are not a firm basis for loyalty. This remains the case despite decades of nugatory US investment and engagement.
Under Trump’s tariffs, it is too soon to know how far China will be able to maintain the global supply lines on which its aspirations to become the world leader of innovative consumer production depend. Nor will it be easy to develop export markets big enough to compensate for declining sales to the West and its allies. Beijing’s military influence has begun to expand, but remains localised.
Most importantly, the question of Taiwan is now implicit in US language about deterring Chinese aggression. How does Trump’s assault on China’s geostrategic ambitions affect the threat of an imminent blockade, or even a full-scale invasion? The widespread view that an invasion isn’t inevitable now gives little real assurance.
Indeed, with the US taking an active stance, the status quo based on “ambiguity” is gone. Preparations to besiege Taiwan, let alone to invade, would be spotted in time for pre-emptive action.
104% tariffs on China are not enough, I’m advocating 400%. I do business in China, they don’t play by the rules. They’ve been in the WTO for decades. They have never abided by any of the rules they agreed to when they came in for decades. They cheat, they steal, they steal IP, I can’t litigate in their courts. They take product, technology, they steal it, they manufacture it and sell it back here …
I want Xi on an airplane to Washington to level the playing field. This is not about tariffs anymore. Nobody has taken on China yet … As someone who actually does business there, I’ve had enough. I speak for millions of Americans who have IP that have been stolen by the Chinese … the government cheats and steals and FINALLY an administration … that puts up and says “enough!” …
Xi can only stay the supreme leader if people are employed … It’s time to squeeze Chinese heads into the wall NOW!
Or check out this video from Chris Chappell of China Uncensored.
“The CCP wants to defend global trade. But they’re the ones who destroyed it in the first place.”
“The Chinese Communist Party is freaking out about US tariffs. They’ve launched a full-on propaganda blitz, calling the tariffs abuse. And blackmail. And if anyone is an expert on abuse and blackmail, it’s the CCP. The CCP is also claiming to be the defender of global trade. Yes, China is going to safeguard multilateralism and the multilateral trading system. And they totally are! I’m not being sarcastic here. They really are.”
“The CCP is going to fight for the current global trading system. It’s not because they love international cooperation, which is just propaganda BS. It’s because the CCP has spent decades manipulating global trade to their advantage. So there’s no way they’re going to let all that lying and cheating go to waste. Plus, global trade is basically the only thing keeping China’s economy afloat.”
“China is an export economy. That means their economy relies on manufacturing stuff for the rest of the world to buy. Chinese manufacturing exploded after China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. Because China was able to make stuff more cheaply than other countries, consumers around the world benefited from lower prices on Chinese imports. But countries also lost tons of manufacturing jobs to China. The US alone lost more than two million jobs between 1999 and 2011 as a result of Chinese imports.”
“Besides manufacturing, the other big driver of China’s recent economic growth was real estate investment. Which became a problem after China’s real estate market started to collapse in 2020. So, the CCP decided to double down on manufacturing. They pumped billions of dollars into building more factories and exporting more goods to keep China’s economy from crashing. Which did work, but now China is making way more stuff than the rest of the world can buy. That’s called overcapacity.”
“China is making way more batteries, solar panels, and electric vehicles than the rest of the world wants. And because China has so much overcapacity, it also doesn’t import much from other countries. Which means China now has a trade surplus of almost a trillion dollars. That’s more than any country’s trade surplus in the past century, even adjusted for inflation. And China doesn’t show signs of stopping. Its export volume is growing three times as fast as global trade. That’s insane.”
“So what happens when China exports more and more stuff? They have to cut prices to be able to sell it all. Which means other countries lose even more jobs to China. Entire industries shut down. There are now certain products you can only buy from China. And when those are critical things like medical supplies, that gives China massive political and economic leverage on other countries. Remember when China stopped exporting medical goods during the early days of Covid? Yeah, that, but on an even bigger scale.”
“So that’s why the Chinese Communist Party is fighting to maintain the global trading system. They dominate it. And without it, China’s economy would fail. And their political control would crumble.”
“But how did China get here? It’s not just about cheap labor. The CCP has built an entire economic system to dominate global trade. Back when China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, they promised to follow rules to ensure fair trade practices. To be fair to the CCP, something I never thought I’d say, they did make a bunch of economic reforms in order to get into the WTO. But after they joined, they violated the WTO rules repeatedly. They’ve been cheating the system for decades. And largely getting away with it. You see, the WTO rules are set up to prevent government intervention that would artificially distort global trade. But in a communist system, it’s government intervention all the way down.”
He brings up the example of honey producers getting subsidies at every step of production.
“This industrial policy is incredibly effective for the CCP. It’s how the CCP jump-started its entire electric vehicle industry. And they’re now flooding the rest of the world with cheap EVs.”
“Yes, these are all things that other countries do, too. But no one does them on the same scale as the CCP. In 2019, the CCP spent almost $250 billion dollars on its industrial policy. That’s massive.”
“But it’s not just industrial policy. There are also ways China’s entire financial system distorts global trade. Like everything in China, the financial system is political. All banks in China are either state-owned or state-linked, so the CCP controls how they give out loans. Which means state-owned banks give lots of loans to state-owned enterprises, and to other companies the CCP wants to support. And if those companies can’t pay them back? The banks just keep extending the loans. Because it’s better to take the financial risk than to risk getting on the CCP’s bad side.”
“The CCP’s industrial policy and financial system is destroying the global trading system. More countries have stopped relying on the World Trade Organization to stop the CCP’s unfair trade practices. Instead, they’re putting their own tariffs on Chinese goods. Like Europe’s tariffs on China’s EVs. Or President Trump’s tariffs on China’s…everything.”
Then there’s China’s use of transshipping to other countries to get around tariffs and sanctions. “The US has had anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese honey since 2001. So Chinese exporters have tried to get around it with what’s called ‘honey laundering.'”
“So that’s how the CCP’s industrial policy, their financial system, and their export system are all designed to manipulate global trade. They’ve kept China’s economy going, while hurting other countries. Both advanced economies and developing economies are dealing with the fallout. But it’s gotten so bad, that the rest of the world has no choice but to fight back. Not just the US, but also Europe. And as a result, we may be watching the collapse of global free trade. And it’s the CCP’s fault.”
Also, Trump has the upper hand in the fight because China’s factories had already been closing left and right before he took office, due to rising labor costs and dwindling foreign customers. Here’s a China Observer video from 11 months ago speculating that 90% of Chinese factories might have to close.
And that was before Trump’s tariffs.
Trump is going to win his trade showdown with Xi because American has a much stronger economy than China, one that supports vastly higher domestic consumption, and because he holds all the cards.
I hope your taxes are finished, or at least in the home stretch. Mine are done but not mailed out yet. I made so little last year that I’m getting every cent I sent in back, pitiful though it is.
This week: The Supreme Court hands Trump two victories, more progress in the war against illegal aliens, a trade war reprieve for everyone but China, Jasmine Crockett seems to think illegal aliens pick cotton, Tim Walz proves he’s still a putz, and after 72 years, police finally arrest an infamous Mexican bandit!
The Supreme Court is allowing the Trump administration to move forward with its plans to fire thousands of probationary federal employees, overturning a lower court order preventing the terminations.
The Supreme Court lifted an injunction Tuesday from a California federal court barring the Trump administration from firing employees across six federal agencies. The lower court order came last month following a lawsuit from the American Federation of Government Employees, a powerful public sector union.
“The District Court’s injunction was based solely on the allegations of the nine non-profit-organization plaintiffs in this case. But under established law, those allegations are presently insufficient to support the organizations’ standing,” the justices said in an unsigned ruling.
Liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the court’s order. Sotomayor did not explain her reasoning, while Jackson said the Trump administration failed to demonstrate the urgency of the issue.
Nearly two months after a top Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) official and support team arrived at IRS headquarters to investigate waste and fraud—aiming to streamline a bloated and corrupt federal bureaucracy—the Trump administration has begun a sizeable workforce reduction across the federal agency.
Fox News reported late Friday evening that the IRS will begin laying off about 20,000 staffers — up to 25% of the workforce — on Friday and through next week.
Most job cuts will center around the IRS Office of Civil Rights and Compliance, which protects taxpayers from discrimination, audits, and investigations.
White House spokesperson Liz Huston told Fox News, “In a stark contrast to the previous administration’s wildly unpopular plan to hire thousands of additional IRS agents, President Trump is focused on saving tax dollars, eliminating bloat, axing useless DEI offices, and increasing the agency’s efficiency.”
Here’s more from Fox:
In addition to the layoffs, the agency said in a letter to employees that it is eliminating its Office of Civil Rights and Compliance, which is responsible for protecting taxpayers from discrimination, audits and investigations.
. . .
“This action is being taken to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the IRS in accordance with agency priorities and the Workforce Optimization Initiative outlined in a recent Executive Order,” the letter states, referring to President Donald Trump’s executive order directing the Department of Government Efficiency to get rid of wasteful spending.
The agency said it was approved to offer Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA) and Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment (VSIP). Information about those programs will be shared with employees at a later date, the message said.
“This calendar year to date, approximately 5% of this office left through the Deferred Resignation Program and attrition,” the message said. “An additional 75% of the office will be reduced through a RIF (Reduction in Force).”
A Treasury Department spokesperson told Fox News, “The rollback of wasteful Biden-era hiring surges and consolidation of critical support functions are vital to improving both efficiency and quality of service. ” The spokesperson added, “The Secretary is committed to ensuring that efficiency is realized while providing the collections, privacy, and customer service the American people deserve.”
An official with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) said that millions of migrants are currently receiving taxpayer-funded Medicaid benefits while thousands are on voter rolls across the country and are illegally voting in American elections.
DOGE official and equity firm CEO Antonio Gracias said that migrants have obtained Social Security cards after being released into the interior of the country with a notice to appear in immigration court, with court dates scheduled an average of six years after their release.
“So now you’re in the country with some quasi-legal status, you’re waiting for your court date … you can fill out an asylum application,” Gracias explained during a recent appearance on the “All In” podcast, which featured Daily Wire host Ben Shapiro. “Once that application is in, you can file another form, a 765 to get work authorization, once you get that, you get a 766, which is the authorization and we automatically send you a Social Security card in the mail.”
With access to Social Security cards, Gracias says, over a million migrants have been able to receive Medicaid benefits. “We mapped this through the benefit programs, we found every benefits program that is being accessed by these people, 1.3 million are on Medicaid right now, today,” Gracias said.
He went on to explain that thousands of migrants have been found on voter rolls as well, also asserting that the Democratic Party opened the border in order to import new voters.
“We looked at voter rolls and we found that thousands are registered to vote in friendly states. And we looked even further in those friendly states and found that many of those people had actually voted. It was shocking to us,” Gracias explained. “I think this was a move to import voters.”
“This doesn’t include the 7.8 million that ICE has that have come in illegally that we know are here and all the people who are here illegally who we don’t know are here,” he explained.
DOGE is uncovering illegal aliens and massive fraud. It’s easy to see why Democrats are upset…
The Supreme Court on Monday lifted a federal judge’s order that once blocked the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport suspected members of a Venezuelan gang to El Salvador.
In a 5–4 majority opinion, the Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a major victory against legal challenges regarding his mass deportation agenda. The decision allows Trump to continue invoking the Alien Enemies Act to accelerate the removal of illegal immigrants believed to be in Tren de Aragua.
The nation’s highest court, however, noted that the administration should give immigrants it seeks to deport “reasonable time” to challenge their removal from the U.S. in court. Those legal challenges must take place in Texas, where the detainees are held, and not Washington, D.C., the conservative majority ruled.
“The notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs,” the ruling states. “The detainees subject to removal orders under the [Alien Enemies Act] are entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal.”
President Donald Trump announced Thursday that his administration is finalizing plans to withhold all federal funding for sanctuary cities and states that provide safe harbor to illegal aliens.
“No more Sanctuary Cities! They protect the Criminals, not the Victims,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “They are disgracing our Country, and are being mocked all over the World.”
On his first day in office, Trump signed the “Protecting the American People Against Invasion” executive order laying out a framework to strictly enforce the nation’s immigration laws and “prioritize the safety, security, and financial and economic well-being of Americans.”
In the E/O, Trump authorized the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security to “evaluate and undertake any lawful actions” needed to ensure sanctuary jurisdictions across the U.S. are not receiving federal funds.
Now, it appears Trump is ready to drop the hammer on these Democrat strongholds.
“Working on papers to withhold all Federal Funding for any City or State that allows these Death Traps to exist,” the president said in his post.
Sanctuary jurisdictions are states, counties, or cities that refuse to cooperate with federal law enforcement agencies seeking to deport criminal illegal aliens.
There are about a dozen states and hundreds of cities across the US that consider themselves “sanctuaries” for illegals.
The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security and Enforcement held a hearing Wednesday to address the issue, titled “Sanctuary Jurisdictions: Magnet for Migrants, Cover for Criminals.”
Republicans contended that sanctuary cities have been an impediment to the mass deportations the Trump administration has prioritized in its first 100 days of office.
But Democrats defended Sanctuary Cities, arguing that trust between local law enforcement and the community erodes when the police comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In his opening statement, Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) argued that the strong measures were necessary after Democrats deliberately trafficked over eight million unvetted illegal aliens into the country, “including some of the most dangerous, vicious criminals and cartel members in the world.”
“Congress must enact stronger laws that will prevent a future Joe Biden from ever again placing our families at risk, and that will stop today’s Democratic politicians from impeding the enforcement of our immigration and public safety laws,” said McClintock stated.
The usual talking heads said that Trump was going to trigger higher inflation (higher, that is, than the Biden inflation they’d been taking such pains to hide). Reality: Not so much. “CPI Shows 12 Month Inflation Rate at 2.4%; Lowest Core in 4 Years.”
ICE deport criminal illegal alien for the 40th time. “Julian Estrada-Garcia, 36, has four convictions for illegal entry and convictions for driving while intoxicated, possession of illicit narcotics, and fraud.” Just the sort of people Democrats are working so hard to keep us from deporting…
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed Rep. Chip Roy’s (R-TX-21) Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require proof of American citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.
The SAVE Act would require states to verify U.S. citizenship and identity through documentary proof in-person when an individual registers to vote in federal elections, regardless of the registration method. Additionally, it requires states to remove “non-citizens” from voter rolls.
“The American people have spoken very clearly that they believe only American citizens should vote in American elections. There’s nothing controversial about that,” Roy said on the floor before the vote.
“This legislation is designed to restore that faith, to save our elections, to save election integrity,” he added.
The U.S. House passed the SAVE Act 220 to 208, with four Democratic members voting in favor of the legislation — one of them being Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX-28). No Republicans voted against the bill.
A Gallup poll from October 2024 found that 84 percent of respondents are in favor of requiring voters to provide photo identification at voting locations, and 83 percent favor requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote.
What do you know, another 80/20 issue Democrats are on the wrong side of. Of course, they’re lying about the SAVE Act, so if you see misinformation about it on facebook, ask them where in the ext of the bill itself do they see the nonsense they’re peddling.
President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he is implementing a 90-day pause on retaliatory tariffs for countries that have come to the negotiating table, while raising tariffs on China to 125 percent following Beijing’s latest retaliatory levies.
Trump stated on Truth Social that he is lowering the retaliatory tariffs he unveiled earlier this week for the “worst offenders” to the baseline rate of 10 percent after more than 75 nations expressed a willingness to negotiate new trade deals with the U.S. He vowed not to raise rates on those countries for 90 days while negotiations proceed.
“Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately,” Trump posted.
“Conversely, and based on the fact that more than 75 Countries have called Representatives of the United States, including the Departments of Commerce, Treasury, and the USTR, to negotiate a solution to the subjects being discussed relative to Trade, Trade Barriers, Tariffs, Currency Manipulation, and Non Monetary Tariffs, and that these Countries have not, at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape, or form against the United States, I have authorized a 90 day PAUSE, and a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of 10%, also effective immediately,” Trump added.
Stocks immediately surged upon Trump’s announcement with each of the three major indexes jumping by over 7 percent. The Dow Jones and S&P 500 saw their biggest gains in five years, and the tech-oriented Nasdaq jumped over 10 percent. Wall Street had been reeling since last week when Trump announced a dramatic global tariff package consisting of a 10 percent minimum tariff and much higher tariff rates for many countries worldwide.
Golly, It’s almost like Trump knew what he was doing and planned something like this all along, integrating both carrot and stick in his negotiating strategy. And it’s almost like China is on the outside looking in as Trump wins lower rates for American goods, accomplishing the decoupling of America from China and more firmly cementing other nations in America’s sphere of influence rather than China’s.
A whole lot of promising return for one week of work…
This week, President Trump instituted a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for the nations that are clearly interested in coming to the negotiating table to make deals more fair to the United States. The reality is brutally simple: America holds all the cards.
“What’s the largest consumer market on Earth? The United States,” Kevin O’Leary noted this week. “Almost 40% of all goods consumed worldwide. What’s the largest GDP? 25 or 26% of the world? The United States of America. China needs the United States.”
Even our top competitor in the global market, China, needs us more than we need them.
During a recent appearance on “The Ingraham Angle,” investor Chamath Palihapitiya laid out a stark picture of China’s economic fragility, arguing that the ongoing tariff standoff gives the United States far more leverage than Beijing wants to admit.
“Even the Chinese economists are admitting that the tariffs are gonna hurt China a lot more than the United States,” Ingraham said, pointing to growing concern within China itself. She quoted one Chinese economist who conceded, “The impact on China is mainly that Chinese products have nowhere to go. These companies will be hit very hard.”
Palihapitiya agreed, saying Americans routinely underestimate just how dire China’s economic outlook has become. “Together, America and China represent almost half of world GDP,” he explained, “but underneath the covers, what we keep forgetting time and again is America is the market that matters.”
He pointed to a series of structural problems dragging China down, including its rapidly aging population, tightening restrictions on foreign investment, and unreliable intellectual property protections. “Foreign investment in China has fallen off of a cliff,” Palihapitiya noted, painting a picture of a nation increasingly isolated and economically vulnerable.
This tariff cliff is precisely what America needs to force real change.
China’s economic trajectory, he warned, is far from sustainable. “They have a very difficult economic forecast if they shrink,” he said. “When you look at the China case, they’re in a worse position than we are, which is why they have to sort of come to the negotiating table now and figure out some reasonable thing.”
Palihapitiya added that President Trump understands this imbalance well. “I think this is what President Trump was alluding to when he said, ‘They want to come to the table, and they don’t quite know how.’”
With China’s economy teetering on the brink, the United States is in a far stronger position than most so-called experts ever imagined—and President Trump is wasting no time seizing the advantage.
“Our investigation of MECA has yielded evidence suggesting it holds fiscal and personnel ties to US designated foreign terrorist organizations, chiefly the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), alongside a host of extremist anti-government actors based in the United States,” reads the report by the NCRI, released on Monday.
MECA states on its website that it has sent more than $31 million in aid to children in “Palestine,” Iraq, and Lebanon since 1988. The nonprofit further purports to provide financial and professional assistance to community organizations in the West Bank and Gaza, fund university scholarships for Palestinians, and develop educational programs about the Middle East. MECA states that its “founding advisors” include Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis, Edward Said, and Maxine Waters.
The supposedly humanitarian organization has expressed its support for violence against Israel. The day after October 7, MECA declared its support on social media for the attack: “We are witnessing the people of Gaza rising up to respond to decades of Israeli settler colonial violence. The US [government] bears responsibility for its political, economic & military support of this brutal apartheid regime. Join us to stand in solidarity with Palestine.”
The NCRI report identifies deeper relationships between MECA and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which has been a designated foreign terrorist organization since 1997 and participated in the October 7 attack on Israel.
MECA’s current director of Gaza projects, Dr. Mona El-Farra, previously served as the deputy director of the Union of Health Work Committees, which was recognized as the “health organization” of the PFLP in a 1993 USAID report. In 2014, El-Farra was reportedly denied an exit visa by Israel for “security reasons.” El-Farra and Barbara Lubin, MECA’s founder and current executive director, have both met with Leila Khaled, who joined the PFLP when it was founded in 1967 and became the first woman to hijack a plane.
A media advisory released by MECA in 2011 listed Leena Al-Arian as its communications coordinator. Al-Arian is the daughter of Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist who was sentenced to 57 months in prison for “conspiring to violate a federal law that prohibits making or receiving contributions of funds, goods or services to, or for the benefit of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).”
I think it’s far safer to assume that every middle eastern or Islamic charity raising money for “the children” is actually buying weapons for terrorists or lining the pockets of jihadis. But I’m cynical that way…
“Journalist Matt Taibbi is suing Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove for libel, after the California Democrat claimed during her opening remarks in a House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee hearing on Tuesday that he’s a ‘serial sexual harasser.'” Juding from that picture, I can only assume that Kamlager-Dove has never been on the receiving end of sexual harassment…
Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-ranged) evidently thinks that illegal aliens pick cotton. Eli Whitney died in vain. (Though it wasn’t until John Rust invented an improved picker that manual cotton picking finally died out after World War II.)
Follow-up: “Collin County Residents Reject Planned Islamic ‘City‘. County Judge Chris Hill said he ‘cannot support’ the proposed EPIC City project.” (Previously.)
Tim Walz gets a savage heckling from veterans at the Minnesota state capital. Say what you want about Hillary’s losing Veep pick Tim Kaine, but he wasn’t a weirdo who didn’t know when to get off the stage and slink back into relative obscurity.
Evidently made jealous by Amazon ruining J.R.R. Tolkien, Netflix decided to ruin C. S. Lewis. “Netflix offered Meryl Streep the role of Aslan in new ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ movie.”
Hoovie makes a six figure error calculating the capital gains costs of trading in a Lamborghini Countach for a lease-to-buy Bugatti Veyron. Offered here as a public service for all my viewers leasing a Bugatti Veyron…
It’s pretty big news when the largest retailer in America abandons wokeness.
Anti-woke crusader Robby Starbuck has been on a mission to shift the corporate landscape in America from insanity and rainbows to what he considers “sanity and neutrality.” He has successfully pressured companies such as Tractor Supply, John Deere, Harley-Davidson, Polaris, Indian Motorcycle, Lowe’s, Ford, Coors, Stanley Black & Decker, Jack Daniel’s, DeWalt Tools, Craftsman, Caterpillar, Boeing, and Toyota to move away from toxic Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) practices.
Now, Starbuck is at it again. He wrote on X that America’s largest employer, Walmart, has decided to end its woke policies after he “had productive conversations to find solutions” with management.
He stated that the changes Walmart committed to “will send shockwaves throughout corporate America,” adding that their executives deserve “major credit” for wanting to end corporate wokeness.
“This is the biggest win yet for our movement to end wokeness in corporate America,” Starbuck said.
Here are the changes Walmart committed to:
Surveys: Walmart will no longer participate in the HRC’s woke Corporate Equality Index.
Products: Monitor the Walmart marketplace to identify and remove inappropriate sexual and / or transgender products marketed to children.
Funding of Grants: Review all funding of Pride, and other events, to avoid funding inappropriate sexualized content targeting kids.
Equity: We will not extend the Racial Equity Center which was established in 2020 as a special five-year initiative.
Supplier Diversity: We will evaluate supplier diversity programs and ensure they do not provide preferential treatment and benefits to suppliers based on diversity. We don’t have quotas and won’t going forward. Financing eligibility will no longer be predicated on providing certain demographic data.
LatinX: Walmart will no longer use the term in official communications.
Trainings: Walmart will discontinue racial equity training through the Racial Equity Institute.
DEI: Walmart will discontinue the use of DEI as a term while ensuring a respectful and supportive environment. Our focus is on Belonging for ALL associates and customers.
Starbuck continued:
Remember, Walmart is the #1 employer in America with over 1.6 Million Employees and they have a market cap of nearly $800B. This won’t just have a massive effect for their employees who will have a neutral workplace without feeling that divisive issues are being injected but it will also extend to their many suppliers.
We’ve now changed policy at companies worth over $2 Trillion dollars, with many millions of employees who have better workplace environments as a result. I’m happy to have secured these changes before Christmas when shoppers have very few large retail brands they can spend money with who aren’t pushing woke policies. Companies like Amazon and Target should be very nervous that their top competitor dropped woke policies first. I think Target specifically will suffer serious sales problems as a result and Walmart will benefit.
Our campaigns are now so effective that we’re getting the biggest companies on earth to change their policies without me even posting a story outlining their woke policies. Companies can clearly see that America wants normalcy back. The era of wokeness is dying right in front of our eyes. The landscape of corporate America is quickly shifting to sanity and neutrality. We are now the trend, not the anomaly.
We are winning and one by one we WILL bring sanity back to corporate America.
Kevin O’Leary on Fox Business had some choice things to say:
“Target is a great example. When they got into the gender identity stuff, they got slaughtered.”
“You’ve got to start punishing stupidity at the management level.”
They now teach Bud Light in schools as a cautionary example of what not to do.
Indeed, O’Leary called the Bud Light debacle “a complete combination of idiot management and the inability to read the room.”
This particular turn of phrase stuck out to me, because I remember, very clearly, that the phrase “read the room” was used like a club to justify whatever woke idiocy was coming down the pike at the time: Football players kneeling, defunding the police, treating #BlackLivesMatter riots as justification to break Flu Manchu quarantine, etc. It was a lie based on systemic preference falsification then, but more than true now, as America as a whole is done with wokeness.
Walmart is a big, big domino, and expect most of American companies looking to toss all their woke idiocy on the dunghill of history, no matter how much their HR department might object.
I haven’t reported much on the farce of Democrats tearing through the thicket of law to get at their great devil Donald Trump, mainly because it is such a farce, but here’s Christopher Rufo on Joe Rogan discussing how dangerous and anti-democratic their blood vengeance crusade is.
Joe Rogan: “How disturbed are you by what seems to be this acceptance that people have for prosecuting political opponents?”
JR: “Because to me, it’s, regardless of what you think about Donald Trump as a human being and the polarizing figure that he is, setting the precedent of trying your political opponents to somehow or another, either put them in jail, or make them seem like complete total criminals in a way that would, for the casual, for the person who’s not reading deep into the headlines.”
JR: “The casual Democrat that sees this Trump real estate thing that just happened, where he got fined $365 million. I’ve seen people argue ‘fraud is fraud and this is that and he’s a fraud,’ and then I saw Kevin O’Leary from Shark Tank explain this is what every real estate developer does.”
JR: “They say ‘My building’s worth $400 million,’ and then someone comes along from the bank, and they say ‘No, it’s worth $300 million. We’ll give you a loan on $300 million’ or whatever.”
Christoper Rufo: “It’s negotiation.”
JR: “People overvalue their property all the time. [Someone] has a house and it’s worth $700,000, they decide to list it as $900,000.”
CR: “We have a democratic system that favors Trump, in the sense that he won in 2016, he’s winning the primary right now for republicans in 2024.”
CR: “But you have a bureaucracy that is dead set against him. And the rhetoric amounts to a very odd claim. They essentially say: ‘We want to keep him off the ballot, we want to put him in prison, we want to bankrupt him so he can’t become the president, even if the people support him. We want to deprive the people of making the decision.'”
CR: “So you want to take it out of the realm of politics and into the realm of administrative justice or the criminal justice system, and adjudicate it in that way on bogus pretexts.”
CR: “Who actually rules in this country? Is it the American people who get to decide by their vote who represents them in the government? Or is it the permanent bureaucracy that has accumulated so much power?”
CR: “I’m of the mind that the people should decide, not the bureaucracy. And this is a contest where Democrats are saying essentially we have to destroy democracy in order to save democracy.”
Evidently there’s no undemocratic Rubicon Democrats won’t cross, no bridge they won’t burn, to destroy democracy in the name of saving it from Orange Man Bad.
