Pun Salad

Nope, it appears he's addressing someone more famous in his headline: Hey, Dummy. (archive.today link)

Not all writers can slide so easily from 1950's country to early 19th century English poetry.

By the way, according to EBSCO, Peter Grimes was "a troubled fisherman whose violent nature leads to tragic consequences, particularly the deaths of his apprentices." Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Also of note:

• Who is a more trustworthy observer of America's relations with other countries than Donald Trump? Well, probably anyone picked at random from the first two thousand names in the Boston phone book. But also Dave Barry, who writes on Our Foreign Policy.

  Right now the United States is facing two major foreign-policy crises:

  1. Greenland.
  2. Where King Charles III will go to the bathroom.

  I will take these crises one at a time.

  Greenland is a large island or possibly iceberg off the coast of Canada that President Trump would like to conquer acquire legally. Why? Strategy, that’s why.

  Geographically, Greenland happens to be located in a strategically critical location, namely, right next to outer space. In fact the United States already has a Space Force base in Greenland, which is named (Google this if you don’t believe me) “Pituffik Space Base.” The base gets its name from the Inuit word “pituffik,” meaning “sound of a seal farting.” Here’s Vice President Vance on an official visit there last March, during which he and Mrs. Vance officially observed base personnel participating in squinting exercises.

  Don't lie: given KDW's observation above, you looked to see where J.D.'s wife's hands were in that pic.

  Dave has more, especially about King Charles III possibly having to use a porta-potty when visiting the White House in April. I'm OK with that; the Brits can't be trusted around the building.

• Nellie makes the obvious pun. Her TGIF column at the Free Press is headlined Bored of Peace. (archive.today link)

  → Trump’s Board of Peace(™): President Donald J. this week has launched his Board of Peace. It’s a parallel United Nations, but run by the United States and Trump is the leader of it, indefinitely. Will it replace the United Nations? It “might,” he said, but later said the board would have “tremendous potential with the United Nations.” So really he’s just creating more competition for international federations. A free market for free markets! By the way, everyone’s invited to Trump’s version of the UN: Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, even the Pope. No one is quite sure what the new Board of Peace means, exactly. “The pope has received an invitation and we are considering what to do,” the top Vatican diplomat told journalists. “I believe it will be something that requires a bit of time for consideration before giving a response.” Does the Board of Peace have an army? A constitution? Does it include Trump golf club memberships? Gift bags? Is it just that you get invited to Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff’s text chain? All we know for sure is that it costs $1 billion for a permanent seat on the Trump Board of Peace, which is just a little less than your average private K–8 school board seat.

  `

  When news broke about how expensive membership would be—ONE BILLION BIG ONES—the White House Rapid Response team pushed back. “This is misleading. There is no minimum membership fee to join the Board of Peace,” they wrote. Okay, cool, no membership fee! But then their next sentence: “This simply offers permanent membership to partner countries who demonstrate deep commitment to peace, security, and prosperity.” Okay, well. So. It’s not a membership fee, it’s just a demonstration of deep commitment that you want to keep your seat. This is like when the FP business team debates whether to rebrand our subscriptions as memberships. Like, I’m okay with that, I won’t fight it, but let’s all be adults here—it’s a subscription to a digital magazine, albeit with America’s most gorgeous Friday columnists. But it’s not a velvety club to drink a martini in. The United Nations, that den of iniquity, should absolutely be disbanded. I’m not sure I would replace it with the team behind the Trump Steak of the Month club and such, but no one else is offering.

  I can see why Bari likes her.

• Wait, was this before or after the Board of Peace? Well, at any rate, Paul Mueller looks at The Latest Trump Administration Grift: Tariff Checks.

  Does the administration think its supporters don’t understand economics?

  I would hope not, but some of their policies and proposals make one wonder. On Tuesday, President Trump revived the idea of a $2,000 tariff “dividend” check. Although the politics make sense, the administration assumes people don’t understand basic economic theory. President Trump has painted tariffs as making the American economy more competitive and more productive while simultaneously extracting money from foreigners who pay the Treasury.

  If that’s what was happening, economists would be cheering the tariffs. Unfortunately, President Trump’s understanding of tariffs is just as faulty as his understanding of how much revenue the tariffs have raised. High tariffs don’t make the American economy more competitive. They make it less competitive, because it becomes harder and more costly to build and manufacture. Nor do high tariffs increase production — just the opposite. US manufacturing output has declined over the past year.

  SCOTUS needs to take this toy away from Trump.

• Yeah, it's stupid. Megan McArdle has a suggestion for Trump-haters: There’s a way to stop Trump. First, drop the fascism debate..

  Since Donald Trump entered the American political fray, his opponents have been debating what kind of threat he poses to democracy, and what to do about it. In the New York Times last week, Michelle Goldberg declared that debate over in a column headlined “The Resistance Libs Were Right.”

  The obvious question is: About what?

  Were they right to label him a fascist? That depends on what you mean by the term. As the Justice Department prosecutes Trump’s enemies, the military stages smash-and-grab raids on foreign countries and masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents storm through U.S. cities, it’s hard to deny that the resistance libs were correct about some important things: Trump’s authoritarian instincts, bellicose contempt for norms and fundamental disrespect for America’s democratic traditions. Those character flaws have been given much freer rein in his second term, making the fears of an emerging dictatorship look somewhat more reasonable.

  As I think I've mentioned in the past, one of the older books on my shelves is America's Emerging Fascist Economy by Charlotte Twight, ©1975.

  Fifty-odd years. (Very odd.) So it's taking it's sweet time.

  I've also deployed this Tom Wolfe quote: "The "dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe."

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