Daily Despot Update

Corv

If true, it's exactly what I expected. Even if not true, it's what I expected.

GrateEggspectations

@JohnInCarolina

Luckily, current public opinion of “grab ‘em by the p***y”-in-Chief is such that many will be pursuing this with all of their might. 

GrateEggspectations

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/02/24/al-green-ejected-trump-speech/

DoubleEgger

Here’s an underreported storyline from the ICE detention centers. Loss of local tax revenue. Take a wild guess about who will be making up the shortfall. 

From local news here in the ATL. 

 The U.S. Department of Homeland Security purchased property to build a new detention facility in Hall County last week.

Reviewing documents shared by Oakwood city officials about the purchase on Tuesday morning, Channel 2 Action News learned the facility sold to DHS for more than $68 million.

Oakwood officials estimate the tax revenue loss from the purchase to create more a than $771,000 decrease in ad valorem collections.

Ozzie_Isaac

DoubleEgger said:

Here’s an underreported storyline from the ICE detention centers. Loss of local tax revenue. Take a wild guess about who will be making up the shortfall. 

From local news here in the ATL. 

 The U.S. Department of Homeland Security purchased property to build a new detention facility in Hall County last week.

Reviewing documents shared by Oakwood city officials about the purchase on Tuesday morning, Channel 2 Action News learned the facility sold to DHS for more than $68 million.

Oakwood officials estimate the tax revenue loss from the purchase to create more a than $771,000 decrease in ad valorem collections.

Does Federal government pay property taxes?  What is the lost income from?

They are spending something like $38B buying facilities across the nation - I bet the grift is the kings friends own the properties and will buy them back for pennies once ICE is dismantled.

DoubleEgger

The Feds don’t pay taxes. 

Ozzie_Isaac

The thin skin has to be painful.

Canugghead

https://youtu.be/rlkIlcFXmmo?si=vSNg7AIDJyZyPF-6

Botch

Canugghead said:

https://youtu.be/rlkIlcFXmmo?si=vSNg7AIDJyZyPF-6

Something I'm not understanding here (and I'm not throwing darts in any direction): at about the 1:00 mark the report mentions that trump is threatening tariffs against any nation who continue to supply oil to Cuba.
Why should that dissuade anyone?  Tariffs are ultimately paid by US citizens (the end market), so that is no disincentive to any outside source/country to supply oil to Cuba.  
What am I missing here?  

Ozzie_Isaac

Watching V for Vendetta.  It is to on the nose.

GrateEggspectations

@Botch

Because tariffs ultimately disincentivize the U.S. consumer from purchasing from companies in the foreign nation subject to the tariff. If the U.S. consumer has the choice between a domestic product not subject to any tariffs and a similar product produced by a foreign company whose price is now inflated by 15% by the importer as the result of a tariff (which, as you’ve said, is ultimately passed onto the consumer), the U.S. consumer is unlikely to want to chose the foreign product with the higher cost, thereby driving down the foreign company’s sales. Basically, they serve to reduce export demand from the foreign nation, starving their economy, while incentivizing the U.S. consumer to instead choose domestic or otherwise non-tariffed products. 

The narrative from the administration to other countries has become “if you take action X that we don’t like (in this case, supplying oil to Cuba), we’ll introduce/increase tariffs in the amount of Y%”. On repeat. 

The administration has repeatedly mischaracterized how tariffs work by stating that they are a tax paid by the foreign country (the first that I can recall being a now famous clip of Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in which she demonstrated a complete misunderstanding of how tariffs work in response to a question from the media). A recent study by the Kiel Institute concluded that U.S. consumers are paying 96% of the tariffs. https://www.kielinstitut.de/publications/news/americas-own-goal-americans-pay-almost-entirely-for-trumps-tariffs/

Edit: To date, I hadn’t caught any reaction to the Kiel Institute study by the administration, so just looked it up. White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett criticized similar findings from the New York Fed (which aligned with the Kiel Institute's findings) as "an embarrassment" and "the worst paper I've ever seen in the history of the Federal Reserve System". He suggested that the economists behind such findings "should presumably be disciplined".

JohnInCarolina

More of our tax dollars at work:

https://www.wired.com/story/a-white-house-staffer-appears-to-run-massive-pro-trump-meme-page/

Mark_B_Good

GrateEggspectations said:

@Botch

Because tariffs ultimately disincentivize the U.S. consumer from purchasing from companies in the foreign nation subject to the tariff. If the U.S. consumer has the choice between a domestic product not subject to any tariffs and a similar product produced by a foreign company whose price is now inflated by 15% by the importer as the result of a tariff (which, as you’ve said, is ultimately passed onto the consumer), the U.S. consumer is unlikely to want to chose the foreign product with the higher cost, thereby driving down the foreign company’s sales. Basically, they serve to reduce export demand from the foreign nation, starving their economy, while incentivizing the U.S. consumer to instead choose domestic or otherwise non-tariffed products. 

The narrative from the administration to other countries has become “if you take action X that we don’t like (in this case, supplying oil to Cuba), we’ll introduce/increase tariffs in the amount of Y%”. On repeat. 

The administration has repeatedly mischaracterized how tariffs work by stating that they are a tax paid by the foreign country (the first that I can recall being a now famous clip of Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in which she demonstrated a complete misunderstanding of how tariffs work in response to a question from the media). A recent study by the Kiel Institute concluded that U.S. consumers are paying 96% of the tariffs. https://www.kielinstitut.de/publications/news/americas-own-goal-americans-pay-almost-entirely-for-trumps-tariffs/

Edit: To date, I hadn’t caught any reaction to the Kiel Institute study by the administration, so just looked it up. White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett criticized similar findings from the New York Fed (which aligned with the Kiel Institute's findings) as "an embarrassment" and "the worst paper I've ever seen in the history of the Federal Reserve System". He suggested that the economists behind such findings "should presumably be disciplined".

Agreed. In essence, it increases the cost to consumer.  What that means is there is a better chance of US-based companies to provide same/similar products at the same or a lower price, thereby increasing domestic supply and consumption.  But it still does increase the cost to consumers, one way or another.

Now, this all works, provided that the US has sufficient supply of the raw material inputs to provide the product. Rare earths and uranium are good examples where there are insufficient resources being mined (currently) in the USA ... and the imports cannot be displaced by domestic supply (at least not quickly).

Botch

Mark_B_Good said:
Now, this all works, provided that the US has sufficient supply of the raw material inputs to provide the product. Rare earths and uranium are good examples where there are insufficient resources being mined (currently) in the USA ... and the imports cannot be displaced by domestic supply (at least not quickly).

Might also include MAGA staples like coffee and chocolate... 

Ozzie_Isaac

Mark_B_Good said:

GrateEggspectations said:

@Botch

Because tariffs ultimately disincentivize the U.S. consumer from purchasing from companies in the foreign nation subject to the tariff. If the U.S. consumer has the choice between a domestic product not subject to any tariffs and a similar product produced by a foreign company whose price is now inflated by 15% by the importer as the result of a tariff (which, as you’ve said, is ultimately passed onto the consumer), the U.S. consumer is unlikely to want to chose the foreign product with the higher cost, thereby driving down the foreign company’s sales. Basically, they serve to reduce export demand from the foreign nation, starving their economy, while incentivizing the U.S. consumer to instead choose domestic or otherwise non-tariffed products. 

The narrative from the administration to other countries has become “if you take action X that we don’t like (in this case, supplying oil to Cuba), we’ll introduce/increase tariffs in the amount of Y%”. On repeat. 

The administration has repeatedly mischaracterized how tariffs work by stating that they are a tax paid by the foreign country (the first that I can recall being a now famous clip of Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in which she demonstrated a complete misunderstanding of how tariffs work in response to a question from the media). A recent study by the Kiel Institute concluded that U.S. consumers are paying 96% of the tariffs. https://www.kielinstitut.de/publications/news/americas-own-goal-americans-pay-almost-entirely-for-trumps-tariffs/

Edit: To date, I hadn’t caught any reaction to the Kiel Institute study by the administration, so just looked it up. White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett criticized similar findings from the New York Fed (which aligned with the Kiel Institute's findings) as "an embarrassment" and "the worst paper I've ever seen in the history of the Federal Reserve System". He suggested that the economists behind such findings "should presumably be disciplined".

Agreed. In essence, it increases the cost to consumer.  What that means is there is a better chance of US-based companies to provide same/similar products at the same or a lower price, thereby increasing domestic supply and consumption.  But it still does increase the cost to consumers, one way or another.

Now, this all works, provided that the US has sufficient supply of the raw material inputs to provide the product. Rare earths and uranium are good examples where there are insufficient resources being mined (currently) in the USA ... and the imports cannot be displaced by domestic supply (at least not quickly).

Chicken and an egg problem with a ham fisted application.

US suppliers are not just reliant on raw materials that have been haphazardly tariffed (and ever changing), but the machines they use to manufacture their food also are usually foreign sourced.

I wonder how much @ColbyLang would have had added to his bread making machines form Japan, which had a 15% tariff add in 2026?

DoubleEgger

The Trump Administration just blacklisted a company for refusing to supply technology for robots to auto-kill people and for mass surveillance of Americans. 

Let that sink in for a minute. 

JohnInCarolina

DoubleEgger said:

The Trump Administration just blacklisted a company for refusing to supply technology for robots to auto-kill people and for mass surveillance of Americans. 

Let that sink in for a minute. 

It’s like they’ve never watched Terminator.

lousubcap

Anthropic for the spine to do the right thing.  Wish members of Congress had the same quality. 

DoubleEgger

lousubcap said:

Anthropic for the spine to do the right thing.  Wish members of Congress had the same quality. 

Sadly I doubt the other AI companies have a spine.  It’s coming. 

DoubleEgger

What does “completely and totally obliterated” mean to you? 

JohnInCarolina

We are at war with Iran.  My God. 

GrateEggspectations

JohnInCarolina said:

We are at war with Iran.  My God. 

…And without any buy-in from Congress and/or U.S. citizens. 

DoubleEgger

JohnInCarolina said:

We are at war with Iran.  My God. 

Trump is Bibi’s sock puppet. Bibi must know what’s in the Trump-Epstein files

JohnInCarolina

fishlessman said:

JohnInCarolina said:

fishlessman said:

Ozzie_Isaac said:

Pretty impressive sweep last night!!  I bet there is a lot of mustard and ketchup being cleaned off the walls in the king’s castle today!!

one step closer to being like china/russia/cuba.  hoping its cuba

You mean because we’re getting ready to invade another country (or two) for no good reason?

doubtful

Oops.

JohnInCarolina

DoubleEgger

GrateEggspectations said:

JohnInCarolina said:

We are at war with Iran.  My God. 

…And without any buy-in from Congress and/or U.S. citizens. 

The only thing stopping Trump is his own morality. His words, not mine. 

GrateEggspectations

There was a time where our leaders would be at the forefront of battle. This should be an absolute expectation for any military action. Otherwise, we get the hypocrisy of having serial draft dodgers call the shots from within their secure bubbles, insulated from consequence. 

Buckwoody Egger

terrible development, who knows how this will unfold.  

 

just in case the administration is looking here for requests there’s a perfect place for a podium and press conference in Jerusalem!

no crowds or anything — just like that four seasons in the NJ industrial park.  

only 2% of people in Israel are Christian. same % as Mormon in USA.  

lots of interesting research available on the topic. 

JohnInCarolina

Gee,the “Board of Peace” sure didn’t waste any time starting its first war, did it?

Buckwoody Egger

while the logo is an appreciable tie in of the Ascension and a shawarma 



it does not appear that there is a religious angle so oh well!!!

the presidents 8 min video address focused on the necessary eradication of a long standing threat and creating an opportunity for the people of iran to overthrow and start fresh.  no shortage of topics in the news these days.