As Trump doubles down on tariffs, Matt Stoller wins with "You can’t rebuild through arson." The rest of his commentary is worth a read, too. Excerpt:
"More broadly, it takes years to reorient supply chains and rebuild factories, the only thing you can do in a few days is cut all cash going out the door and try to hunker down. So I suspect that’s what’s happening. For instance, Howmet Aerospace, a major supplier to Boeing and Airbus, declared it may halt shipments based on the tariffs. To offer a metaphor, it’s like trying to get someone off heroin by promising them that withdrawal will be fun, and then immediately putting them to work in the hot sun without water. It’s not that getting someone off heroin is a bad thing, but that approach may end up killing them."
As for Cory Booker's 25 hour "filibuster" -- it wasn't a filibuster, there was no pending legislation, it was just showboating. See this critique ("The Longest Speech Says the Least: Cory Booker's Fake Filibuster ") for the details about how hollow it was. Excerpt:
"Booker’s 24-hour floor speech was not about halting harm. It was about
constructing an image. The performance became the message.....
"Because this wasn’t a filibuster to halt a bill, it wasn’t a bold act of legislative resistance. It wasn’t even a formal filibuster — no legislation or nomination was being blocked. What it did do was keep the Senate floor open through the night, requiring Capitol Police and staff to remain on duty. When Booker finally yielded the floor, the Senate moved on — quickly confirming Trump’s NATO ambassador nominee Matthew Whitaker.
"We’ve been here before — watching politics turn into performance, not policy. Booker’s speech broke Strom Thurmond’s record for the longest Senate speech — a symbolic irony, considering Thurmond’s was an act of racist obstruction against the Civil Rights Act, now eclipsed by a Black senator using the same tactic… but for what?"
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