Smirking Chimp (2024)

23/11/2024

Carl Gibson in Saturday's Chimp: "Fortune reported Friday that Walmart's finance chief, John David Rainey, has acknowledged that new tariffs would likely be passed on to the people buying goods imported from overseas. Currently, anywhere from 70% to 80% of goods sold at Walmart are made in China, and could be affected by potential new tariffs. In September, PBS reported that Trump proposed tariffs as high as 60% on imports from China, and 20% tariffs on products made elsewhere."

Walmart — the world's largest retailer — is now issuing a warning to customers that they may be paying more for the same products if President-elect Donald Trump makes good on his promise to impose new tariffs on imports.

23/11/2024

Heather Digby Parton in Saturday's Chimp: "It's always safe to bet on the ultimate cowardice of Republicans in the face of Donald Trump so I won't get my hopes up. But this episode shows one thing: Trump lost. Bigly. Within a little over two weeks, he's already blown the appearance of invincibility, demonstrating once again that he is an incompetent egomaniac whose psychological unfitness creates nothing but chaos. As we all know, there aren't many guardrails left but Trumpian dysfunction is actually one of them and it's still fully operational."

Contrary to his customary bragging that he won the election in an unprecedented landslide, President Donald Trump's percentage of the popular vote has fallen below 50% and it drops a little bit lower every day as the final votes are tallied up. According to the Cook Report, as of Tuesday, Trump was....

23/11/2024

Thom Hartmann in Saturday's Chimp: "Have you heard that Comcast is planning to sell MSNBC? Is Rupert Murdoch planning to buy it? Will America’s media landscape soon resemble those of Hungary and Russia? Without the rightwing media juggernaut, Donald Trump probably wouldn’t be president next year and wouldn’t have won in 2016. That said, the progressive media landscape looks like it might be about to get a whole lot worse."

Have you heard that Comcast is planning to sell MSNBC? Is Rupert Murdoch planning to buy it? Will America’s media landscape soon resemble those of Hungary and Russia?

23/11/2024

Jaime O'Neill in Saturday's Chimp: "As a man who spent a big chunk of his life either as a student or as a teacher, I may know something you don’t know. In case you didn’t notice when you were a student, the kids who raise their hands in class are generally reviled by the other kids. Know-it-alls just aren’t popular. Sometimes even teachers don’t like them. Some of those students signaling to be recognized just want to drop a name or two to demonstrate that they even know styff that hadn't even been asked about, and mostly to win favor with the person standing at the front of the class. It can seem like toadyism even to classmates who don’t know the word toadyism."

As a man who spent a big chunk of his life either as a student or as a teacher, I may know something you don’t know. In case you didn’t notice when you were a student, the kids who raise their hands in class are generally reviled by the other kids. Know-it-alls just aren’t popular. Sometimes e...

23/11/2024

Frida Berrigan in Saturday's Chimp: "My inbox is full of lament (and encouragement). My Instagram feed is full of anger and 'the arc of the moral universe bends slow but…' My Facebook brims with exhortations to focus on the positive, on what we can control, on the next fight."

I live in a poor Democratic stronghold in southeastern Connecticut. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris won our state by more than 200,000 votes. Our seven paltry electoral votes went blue. Here, Jill Stein got a lot more votes than Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., but nowhere near enough to swing the Nutmeg S...

23/11/2024

Bill Berkowitz in Saturday's Chimp: "After being sidelined by the Trump campaign, postponing the publication of a book that promised to be an incendiary critique of liberal elites, social justice advocates, culture war issues, and the administrative state, and weathering criticism of its controversial and unpopular Project 2025, the 900-+page blueprint for the next Republican administration, the Heritage Foundation, the conservative movement’s most prominent and powerful enterprise, has emerged from its Summer-long stay in the Gulag."

After being sidelined by the Trump campaign, postponing the publication of a book that promised to be an incendiary critique of liberal elites, social justice advocates, culture war issues, and the administrative state, and weathering criticism of its controversial and unpopular Project 2025, the 90...

23/11/2024

The Daily Chimp for Saturday, 23 November 2024: links to all of today's front page posts.

Carl Gibson | ‘Not Immune’: Walmart Confirms New Tariffs Will Mean Higher Prices for Customers Walmart — the world's largest retailer — is now issuing a warning to customers that they may be paying more for the same products if President-elect Donald Trump makes good on his promise to impose...

22/11/2024

Robert Reich in Friday's Chimp: "The lesson of the debacle of the 2024 election is that big corporations and the wealthy have shafted average working Americans, whose wages and jobs have gone nowhere for decades and who are understandably frustrated and angry at what they see as a rigged system. But Democrats have offered no alternative explanation for what’s happened to average working people or agenda for remedying it. Trump's baseless explanation and agenda are the only ones available. So it’s no surprise that many working Americans voted for Trump on Election Day."

At the same time Democrats and progressives are justifiably enraged at Trump’s gonzo Cabinet picks, they’re all but mute about corporate America’s continued siphoning of economic gains to the top.

22/11/2024

Maya Boddie in Friday's Chimp: "Ex-Rep. Matt Gaetz's (R-FL) announcement that he would bow out from consideration to serve as Attorney General Thursday revealed an 'unmistakeable lesson' for President-Elect Donald Trump, according to Politico's Kyle Cheney. 'Donald Trump is not a monarch,' Cheney emphasizes. 'Rather than showcasing Trump’s absolute power over his GOP allies, it revealed his limits,' the Politico reporter submits."

Ex-Rep. Matt Gaetz's (R-FL) announcement that he would bow out from consideration to serve as Attorney General Thursday revealed an "unmistakeable lesson" for President-Elect Donald Trump, according to Politico's Kyle Cheney.

22/11/2024

Amanda Marcotte in Friday's Chimp: "The tactic has since become rote on the right, largely through the Twitter account Libs of TikTok. Run by far-right influencer Chaya Raichik, Libs of TikTok offers a bloodthirsty audience a constant stream of photos and videos of random people — usually from their small, personal social media accounts — usually for no other reason than they are q***r or q***r-positive. Her followers, whipped into a hateful frenzy, flood the victim du jour with hateful messages and often escalate to offline contact of harassing phone calls and bomb threats. We can see how this is already manifesting in the attacks on McBride. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is going along with the abuse. Less than a day after initially saying he wanted to 'treat all persons with dignity and respect,' he switched to attacking McBride by saying, 'a man cannot become a woman.'"

First things first: It is absolutely the case that the harassment of Sarah McBride, the newly elected Democratic representative from Delaware, is rooted in Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., having an insatiable desire for attention. Mace's narcissism is legendary even by Capitol Hill standards. In one of the...

22/11/2024

Jaime O'Neill in Friday's Chimp: "On a recent Christmas Eve, Ericka Jones, then the wife of Alex Jones, professional crazy person, kicked the living s**t out of her husband. (I don't know if they're still married, but I wouldn't bet on it.) The incident made the news, but perhaps you missed hearing about that episode from Christmas past. On the night Christ was born. Ain't that just priceless?"

On a recent Christmas Eve, Ericka Jones, then the wife of Alex Jones, professional crazy person, kicked the living s**t out of her husband. (I don't know if they're still married, but I wouldn't bet on it.) The incident made the news, but perhaps you missed hearing about that episode from Christmas....

22/11/2024

Bill Blum in Friday's Chimp: "What these arguments all miss, however, is an essential element of Trump’s triumph—the simple and sad truth that hate sells. Ever since he descended the golden escalator at Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan in July 2015 to declare his candidacy for President, Trump has preached an unrelenting gospel of hate, scapegoating immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community, minorities, political opponents, journalists, academics, and scientific experts as the cause of our alleged national decline. He has flagged them as 'the enemy from within' as a target that must be removed or neutralized."

The post-mortems on Donald Trump’s victory and the Democrats’ defeat are coming from all directions. Most focus on Kamala Harris’s shortcomings, and many are contradictory.

22/11/2024

Thom Hartmann in Friday's Chimp: "Donald Trump, by taking Russia’s side and condoning Putin’s slaughter in Ukraine, tells us that he has no interest in or concern for democracy and democratic nations. Throughout his last presidency he sucked up to autocrats and oligarchs while trashing our democratic allies around the world. President Biden and Vice President Harris, through their support for Ukraine’s self-defense, showed us their commitment to democracy both at home and around the world. Sometimes, as we learned in World War II, it’s necessary to go to war to stop dictatorial madmen whose wars and territorial conquest won’t be otherwise stopped."

In the last week, Russia has unleashed one of its most violent missile attacks against Ukraine, and the United States and at least one other European country have given president Zelenskyy permission to use long-range missiles to attack within Russia.

22/11/2024

The Daily Chimp for Friday, 22 November 2024: links to all of today's front page posts.

Robert Reich | GM, Corporate Greed, and the Reason the Democrats Lost the Election Friends, At the same time Democrats and progressives are justifiably enraged at Trump’s gonzo Cabinet picks, they’re all but mute about corporate America’s continued siphoning of economic gains to the top. Yet t...

21/11/2024

Robert Reich in Thursday's Chimp: "With due respect to Congressman Torres, Musk is no 'intrepid innovator.' He’s an intrepid government contractor. And he’s caused extraordinary harm to America — from the dangerous lies he’s spewing on X, to his war on workers, to the $120 million he spent to get Trump elected. Musk’s so-called 'innovations' have depended on government money. Tesla and SpaceX got started with assistance from state and federal policies, government contracts, and loans."

On Tuesday night, Elon Musk and Donald Trump watched SpaceX’s launching of a rocket that could someday take people to Mars. It could also make Musk even richer if Trump awards him government contracts to try.

21/11/2024

Heather Digby Parton in Thursday's Chimp: "We knew Trump was lying when he said during the campaign that he'd never heard of Project 2025 while simultaneously insisting that he didn't agree with it. He'd certainly never read it personally but knew many of the people involved, who had worked in his first administration. They were among the most loyal of the loyal and there was never any doubt that Trump would hire many of them for a second term."

During the campaign, you may recall Donald Trump waxing on interminably during "the weave" about the time he watched Elon Musk's picture-perfect spacecraft landings. He would say, "Elon with his rocket ships that land within 12 inches on the moon where they want it to land..." Trump traveled to Texa...

21/11/2024

Jaime O'Neill in Thursday's Chimp: "Caring about what’s being done and not being done can require too much of us which makes shrugging it off with a vulgar cliché one of the few available options. Ergo, 'I don’t give a f**k.' But, of course, the very act of thinking that means that you probably do give a f**k, or maybe more than one. You just don’t have the faintest idea about what to do with that f**k except to not value it much."

It’s hard to imagine anyone who has lived through even a decade or more of American politics without having taken refuge behind the phrase “I don’t give a f**k.” Pretending we don’t care is a shield, but it all too often actually means we care a great deal. Or don't. Take your pick. Who ca...

21/11/2024

Maya Boddie in Thursday's Chimp: "As Democrats fight to confirm President Joe Biden's judicial nominees before President-Elect Donald Trump takes the White House in January, GOP lawmakers have been fighting to halt the process. According to a Wednesday International Business Times report, 'Republican senators warned that Donald Trump was hurting their progress by taking some members of Congress to watch the SpaceX launch, causing them to miss votes.'"

As Democrats fight to confirm President Joe Biden's judicial nominees before President-Elect Donald Trump takes the White House in January, GOP lawmakers have been fighting to halt the process.

Smirking Chimp

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