IT’S MY THURSDAY ESSAY FOR VIP SUBSCRIBERS: The Case For (and Against) Trump’s Tariffs. “Today’s essay is a tricky one because tariffs are a surprisingly emotional issue, involving jobs, buying habits, and sometimes sentimental notions about the good old days, on top of the drier macroeconomic and geopolitical concerns. So before we go any further, please understand that I have more questions than answers. What I have for you today is more of an exploration than an argument in favor of one side or the other.”
Author Archive: Stephen Green
April 3, 2025
CHANGE: Reversal of fortune in Homer City: new manufacturing project a ‘Game Changer.’
The emotion coming from hometown boy Shawn Steffee was palpable — not just because the build will resurrect Homer City, which has seen six generations of Steffees, but also because it will create thousands of good-paying manufacturing jobs for at least the next four to six years.
“It is a game changer for the region and for the state of Pennsylvania,” said Steffee, the business agent for the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers Local 154, in an interview with the Washington Examiner.
Steffee said part of what makes this a big deal is that the HCR is building up to 4.5 gigawatts of natural gas generation. Homer City will now be the largest electricity producer in the state, and Steffee’s members in Western Pennsylvania will be instrumental in building and maintaining the facility.
Opportunity, Steffee said, has not been available to his members for four years, forcing them to leave their families and communities behind to travel to New Mexico, Washington, Ohio, West Virginia, and Tennessee because nothing new was being built in Pennsylvania.
“What this means for us is I can bring the boilermakers home back to Pennsylvania. This will be anywhere from a four-to-six-year job. They will need hundreds of boilermakers and thousands of construction workers. This is good for everybody in the building trades,” Steffee said.
Building things is good work.
ATHENA THORNE: Where’d This Chick Even Come From? I Love What She’s Saying About Tariffs! “I had never heard of Batya Ungar-Sargon until very recently when clips of her straight-up spouting common sense and political and economic truth began populating my feeds. I was girl-crushed immediately.”
AMERICA WAS ALWAYS SUPPOSED TO BE A FREE-TRADE ZONE BEFORE THE COMMERCE CLAUSE WAS WEAPONIZED TO ALLOW WASHINGTON TO REGULATE WHATEVER IT LIKED:
Shortly after the election I was invited to speak to a group of French CEOs to explain Trump's economic policies. I was asked to summarize them in a sentence.
Here's what I said: "He's going to raise the barriers around the country, and he's going to remove the barriers inside…
— Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (@pegobry_en) April 3, 2025
Still, as today’s stock market implosion shows, the changes won’t be painless.
INDEED:
Credit, unknown. pic.twitter.com/jOQT0DdXIC
— Mark Reid 🇨🇦 (@MarkReid42) April 2, 2025
SCOTT PINSKER: Trump Is Now a Wartime President. “It’s a trade war. Which means Trump is now a wartime president.”
THE MOST CORRUPT ADMINISTRATION IN AMERICAN HISTORY:
Biden and Obama’s abuse of taxpayers is truly shocking. Now Biden has a Solyndra problem. Just like Obama, Biden blew billions of your taxpayer $$ on energy companies now going bankrupt. Several energy companies that got big loans from the Biden administration's $400 billion…
— Elizabeth MacDonald (@LizMacDonaldFOX) April 3, 2025
Full text:
Biden and Obama’s abuse of taxpayers is truly shocking. Now Biden has a Solyndra problem. Just like Obama, Biden blew billions of your taxpayer $$ on energy companies now going bankrupt. Several energy companies that got big loans from the Biden administration’s $400 billion green energy slush pot loan program are reportedly facing difficulties and potential bankruptcy. Li-Cycle Holdings, a battery recycling company, got a $375 million loan commitment but has warned investors about its potential bankruptcy. It got that loan within days of Biden losing to Trump, as part of the $20 billion in loans that were rushed out the door before Trump took office.
CEO Ajay Kochhar reportedly worried his company couldn’t afford to repay, but Biden officials pressured him to take the money according to reports. Biden’s green energy loan czar Jigar Shah according to the Wall Street Journal told its top officials to “get your ass to Pittsburgh“ in order to get the loan. Sunnova Energy got a $3 billion loan guarantee, and is also on the verge of bankruptcy. Plug Power, another recipient of a $1.6 billion loan guarantee, has announced layoffs. The Energy Dept’s Inspector General already warned about massive potential fraud in this energy loan program.
“Potential.”
The Biden Cabal was a trillion-dollar money laundering operation.
CHRIS QUEEN: It’s a Massive Day for People of Faith in Georgia!
EDUCATION REFORM: Colleges can admit ‘diverse’ students without racial preferences.
Racial preferences in university admission are divisive and unfair, argues Richard D. Kahlenberg on Politico. Diversity is a worthy goal, he writes, but it’s best achieved by eliminating preferences for the privileged, such as children of alumni and faculty, and giving an admissions boost to students from lower-income families.
Kahlenberg is director of the American Identity Project at the Progressive Policy Institute and author of Class Matters: The Fight to Get Beyond Race Preferences, Reduce Inequality and Build Real Diversity at America’s Colleges.
Giving a break to economically disadvantaged students, regardless of their race, will boost racial integration, he argues. It has far wider public support than racial preferences.
But then universities would have to admit more of those icky white people from Appalachia.
FLORIDA, MAN: Virtue Signaling or Fence Sitting? Florida Mayor Refuses to Sign — or Veto — Immigration Bill. “Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan refused to sign it on Wednesday. She also refused to veto it. That means it will still go into effect.”
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE (COLORADO EDITION): Lawsuit challenges constitutionality of Prop KK guns and ammunition tax.
Proposition KK — passed in November with 54 percent of the vote — will add a 6.5 percent excise tax on the manufacture and sale of firearms and ammunition. It will be imposed on firearms dealers, manufacturers and ammunition vendors, with the exception of those selling less than $20,000 per year as well as law enforcement agencies and active-duty military.
The lawsuit was filed on the basis that the tax is unconstitutional because it does not pass a “means-end” test handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2022 Bruen decision. That historical case ruled that gun rights restrictions must be consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulations.< “The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly held in various contexts that the exercise of a constitutional right cannot be singled out for special taxation,” says the complaint in part, filed on March 31. “Federal legislation to prevent this sort of tax was introduced just days ago in both the House and Senate,” SAF Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb said. “They’re calling it the Freedom from Unfair Gun Taxes Act, and greedy, anti-gun lawmakers in Colorado are probably at least partly responsible for such a bill on Capitol Hill. You simply cannot tax the exercise of a constitutionally-protected fundamental right.”
Developing…
TRILLION-DOLLAR WHACK-A-MOLE: Useless Government Program to Be Eliminated, Just As It Was to Be in 2017.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Project Kuiper readies long-awaited operational satellite launch.
United Launch Alliance is set to loft the first 27 satellites of the more than 3,200 planned for Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband constellation April 9, roughly a year behind schedule as the company races to meet deployment deadlines.
Amazon said April 2 it is preparing to launch its first batch of satellites to low Earth orbit on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, as part of a mission dubbed KA-01 (Kuiper Atlas 1).
The satellites feature significant upgrades over two prototypes ULA launched on an Atlas V in 2023, according to Amazon, including improved phased array antennas, processors, solar arrays, propulsion and optical inter-satellite links.
Successful in-orbit prototype tests had given Amazon confidence it could start deploying operational satellites, built at a facility in Kirkland, Washington, in the first half of 2024, enabling beta trials with potential customers such as Verizon and Vodafone later that year.
The company has not commented on what caused a delay that pushed potential beta services into 2025.
Well, space is hard and most everybody runs late.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Musk and DOGE Are Fun, but Tom Homan Is My Early Trump 47 MVP. “In addition to the radical shift away from open borders lunacy, the ‘new sheriff in town’ swagger and vibe that Tom Homan brings to this effort is essential. Republicans of yesteryear were easily drowned out by the constantly caterwauling Dem sanctuary politicians and the media hacks who abet them.”
MIDDLE EAST: Israeli operation in Gaza expanding to seize ‘large areas,’ defense minister says. “Israeli leaders have consistently expressed their intention to fully destroy Hamas and remove the Palestinian militant group from power in Gaza. Israel intends to retain security control over the territory as part of any post-war settlement, Netanyahu, Katz and other top officials have said.”
Well, what else are they supposed to do?
CDR SALAMANDER: What Europe Should, Could, and Would do in a Great Pacific War.
The Anglo-French SSN fleet numbers 13 boats. Using the optimistic “it takes three to make one” formula, that gives you four operational boats.
Assuming a Great Pacific War will require the USA to pull almost all its operational forces from Europe to the Pacific, there will be a significant—and smart—argument in Europe that they need to keep their forces at home to cover any threat from their east should it arise, and to secure the Atlantic that has largely been abandoned by the Americans.
As such, any fight in the Pacific would be lucky to get 50% of available operational units. That gives us… two SSN.
Not nothing, but a rounding error in a Great Pacific War. I would give it 2/3 odds that the national caveats would limit them to operations south of Singapore and east of Guam.
So, in the end, with the Great Pacific War, we should not count on much from Europe for this fight. Perhaps some security for Australian airspace and territorial seas, but that would be about it.
It gets lonely out there real fast.
April 2, 2025
ANALYSIS: TRUE.
More like corrupt IMO.
They know exactly what they are doing.
— Publius (@OcrazioCornPop) April 2, 2025
Previously: “Congress is now less a place to commit serious acts of lawmaking and more of a perch for launching lucrative social media side gigs and sweetheart stock trades.”
WILL NO ONE RID BYTEDANCE OF THIS TURBULENT APP? TikTok Might Have Found an American Buyer, and It’s a Perfect Match.
PERSPECTIVE:
We won 2 of 3 special elections and secured voter ID in the state of Wisconsin.
And some people are acting like with lost 0-4. lol
— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) April 2, 2025
And DataRepublican from the replies: “Also, the last-minute surge was real. We have the power to make 3 of 3 happen next time.”
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Val Kilmer: RIP
LET’S SEE IF BOEING CAN GET THE FIRST VERSION RIGHT BEFORE GETTING TOO EXCITED: F-47 Fighter Program Could See Multiple Versions Built In Increments.
RAYMOND IBRAHIM: Muslims Still Furious Over Christian Victories at Battles of Tours (732) and Vienna (1683).
I’ve been learning a lot from Ray’s video podcasts.