The Frankish Reich

Yes, the WSJ is doing the best reporting on this now. On the opinion side of that same newspaper, this also strikes me as accurate: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/china-trade-talks-donald-trump-tariffs-f730f437?mod=hp_opin_pos_1 Developing an alternative supply will take years and require cooperation with allies because the U.S. can’t produce and process all the rare earths it needs. Japan has pitched a rare-earths alliance as part of tariff negotiations, and the Administration would be wise to expand such a partnership with other allies. This gets to the larger problem with Mr. Trump’s tariff strategy—that is, he doesn’t have one. His latest walk-back shows he can’t bully China as he tried to do in his first term. China has leverage of its own. A smarter trade strategy would be to work with allies as a united front to counter China’s predatory trade practices. Instead, Mr. Trump has used tariffs as an economic scatter-gun against friends as well as foes. This increases China’s leverage, and, like this week’s trade truce, that’s nothing to cheer about.

Well, I guess you're not the brightest knife.

Well, that is certainly true. But then there's the whole southern tier, where it's a very different story.

I agree with this. I'm assuming you mean a return to Obama's first term immigration enforcement policies. Those depended on cooperation by state and local law enforcement agencies. Illegal aliens stopped, found to be driving without a license, then turned over to ICE for removal. No need to raid private businesses or homes; let them come to us (and they will). That "Deporter in Chief" thing really got under his skin, and resulted in a lot of the bad decisions that got us to where we are today.

Gavin Newsom is a pretty ordinary governor. By that I mean: to voters of California are well to the left of voters nationally. He is delivering what they voted for. Because a lot of his policy approaches are at odds with my political beliefs, I consider him a poor choice as a governor or as a president. But I will say this: he is a really, really talented politician. When the LA protests turned violent, most Governors would have been inclined to get the hell out of the way, make it Karen Bass's problem, whatever. He saw it as an opportunity to drive home his points: Trump is grandstanding, this is unnecessary, oh, and Trump flat-out lied to me too. Don't sleep on him. This guy plays the long game. He is good on camera, he is an absolute natural as a bs artist, and I think he's just clearing the field by sucking up all the Democratic anti-Trump attention.

Agreed. Peter Turchin was on to something with his "overproduction of elites." What I'm seeing in these quick polls: yes, Americans dislike violent protests (read: riots). No, Americans don't like sending in the military. Common sense, perhaps more prevalent in the ordinary people than in the political class.

Exactly. Cassidy said RFK assured him that there'd be no changes to the ACIP. Someone is lying here.

What is wrong with this creep?

I’d never heard of these two, so I did a little research. They are two earnest lefties who base their hyper local protest strategy on the earnest righty Tea Party tactics of the Obama years. They are no more communist than the Tea Party acrivists were fascists. This name calling is just childish.

And you’re not!

I can’t even pretend to understand our deranged tarheel anymore. As for new US citizens: if you haven’t done so, watch a naturalization ceremony. I promise you will see tears of joy and true love for what America still means to the world. And guess what? Many, many came in illegally or overstayed their visas. We are a generous and forgiving country.

WTF? drunk posting?

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/09/media/dr-phil-mcgraw-ice-immigration-raids-los-angeles Dr. Phil did a little ride-along. Yeah, that Dr. Phil. What, no room for Kid Rock? Can't make this sh!t up. Impossible to write parody headlines when reality is more absurd.

OK, I kid about Waymos (which I love; never again will I take a beat-up Uber driven by some smelly guy with no A/C in Phoenix or LA), but the fact that people are setting them on fire tells me that this is our same old Antifa gang riding piggyback on someone else's protest/riot. The radical lefties have had a bug up their collective asses about Waymo ever since it was introduced in SF.

Now they've gone too far. The Waymos are innocent! They don't even go on I-5, much less cross the border with deportees. Oh, the LIDAR, the LIDAR ...

Agreed. Time to give up on the minor league off-season football concept. I've always said the only way it works is if the teams are affiliated with NFL teams. The Syracuse Bills or something stupid like that, functioning as a kind of football AAA or NBA G League - some players on a two-way contract, some ringers. That gets me interested in seeing what kind of talent my team has at the minor league level. But there's a whole host of reasons why that model doesn't work, with the CBA being the prime one.

Law prof Steve Vladeck (read his Substack! He's great. Written for lawyers but understandable by informed non-lawyers) provides a little sanity here: There are a lot of misunderstandings and misinformation out there about what Trump has and hasn’t done, and given that I’ve covered these topics before, it seemed worth a quick explainer on why this move is a big deal—but why it also is not as drastic an escalation (or abuse) as many had feared, at least not yet. The TL;DR here is that Trump has not (yet) invoked the Insurrection Act, which means that the 2000 additional troops that will soon be brought to bear will not be allowed to engage in ordinary law enforcement activities without violating a different law—the Posse Comitatus Act. All that these troops will be able to do is provide a form of force protection and other logistical support for ICE personnel. Whether that, in turn, leads to further escalation is the bigger issue (and, indeed, may be the very purpose of their deployment). But at least as I’m writing this, we’re not there yet. That's a critical point. Right now, the National Guard troops cannot engage in law enforcement activities. They are limited to a support role. Use of the Insurrection Act would bring us into a whole new era. Let's hope we don't get there. https://www.stevevladeck.com/p/156-federalizing-the-california-national

So Trump allowed a drug-addled Musk to have nearly unfettered access to all federal government systems. And allowed that same guy to unilaterally make the call on hirings, firings, and agency shutdowns. But the Biden Administration was the one run by the unfit elderly man. Got it.

I will grudgingly agree here. And it is a both sides problem. Our society only very recently crossed the F word barrier. I can't say we're better off for it.

I don't see the case here for federalizing the guard. Not yet at least. Other law enforcement (border patrol) have been deployed, and nearly all of the dangerous stuff was in that weird little municipality of Paramount, which I'd never even heard of before this. This should be considered an extreme step reserved for truly extreme situations.

Nice work, lefties, giving Trump the opportunity to escape the Musk fallout and hanging-by-a-thread Big Beautiful Abomination news cycle. You know he loves this. As for federalizing the National Guard: somehow it still surprises me that these righty "constitutionalists" and states rights advocates abandon all objectivity and become cheerleaders for sending in the troops as soon as their leader calls for it. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/posse-comitatus-act-explained

Who's the trans "woman" here trying to squeeze his fat belly into that belt?

1. Glad they brought him back. Was the TN prosecution a face-saving mechanism for getting him back? A real, good chance of winning prosecution? Time will tell. I'm skeptical of the viability of the charges because the U.S. Attorney resigned rather than sign off on it. 2. Legal issues: to be guilty of transporting aliens, you need to have at least constructive knowledge that the transportees are illegally present. Based on the Biden Administration's actions at the border - something I did not and do not support - there's probably a good chance these transporters didn't sneak in undetected, but rather were released from Border Patrol custody with a Notice to Appear in immigration court somewhere. And that "somewhere" may have been where Abrego was headed. In other words: "illegal aliens" allowed to remain in the United States, so not really illegal in the common sense of the word. 3. Fact issues: time has passed, it won't be easy for the new Acting U.S. Attorney to find witnesses, etc. In other words, this never would have been prosecuted today (June 2025) if the U.S. government hadn't made a mistake by prematurely deporting him to El Salvador. Make of that what you will.

A recurring feature for PPP readers. Today: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/06/07/elon-musk-third-party-andrew-yang-interview-00392288 Andrew Yang has reached out to Elon Musk with a sales pitch: Let’s build a third party together