This is straight out of Frank Capra’s 1939 classic, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, and then some. If you have never seen that movie or haven’t screened it in a while, see it again. Cory Booker is that hero that Jimmy Stewart so capably portrayed on the screen, come to life. Cory Booker for real stood there for 25 hours, breaking the 68-year record held by Strom Thumond, who filibustered for 24 hours, 18 minutes in August of 1957, to oppose the passage of the Civil Rights bill. And Thurmond cheated, by the way. At one point he left the floor to get a sandwich and use the restroom. Lyndon Johnson kept passing bills. The cameras were not recording this non stop. Not like today. So Booker’s achievement really is one for the books, although Thurmond’s effort was nothing to sneeze at, don’t get me wrong.
Both Thurmond and Booker dehydrated their bodies, Thurmond with steam baths and Booker by fasting and not drinking water for days. Booker took on this challenge to make a stance in Trumpian terms, to fight fire with fire. Donald Trump has only gotten where he is because of his perverse showmanship, “a combination of Jesse Helms, P.T. Barnum and Ronald Reagan,” to quote Trump’s lapdog and chief fluffer, Lindsey Graham.
Booker took a page from Trump’s book (in terms of showmanship drawing voters’ attention in) and stood there for 25 hours, asking the question, “Do you want to live in Donald Trump’s America? Is this who we are? Do we want to live with the most incompetent administration in American history?” Because that’s the case. Mike Waltz uses Gmail and maybe he “posts war plans on CompuServe, too” to quote Rick Wilson. We have never seen anything like SignalGate in the intelligence community, not even close.
Booker’s timing could not have been more perfect. Why? Because this White House has lost control of the message. SignalGate is major. It’s not only major because of what it represents on its face, vast incompetence in national security to the level that people could have gotten killed and will get killed if this sort of thing continues. That’s the damage superficially. But beyond that, there is a deep fissure that SignalGate exposed, namely that this White House is floundering with its message now. It is flying blind.
Basically, tomorrow Donald Trump will attempt to sell an insane economic policy, a policy based on fantasy and not reality. This is Trump’s Make America Wealthy stunt. The situation is as amazing as SignalGate on its face because tariffs are a tax, plain and simple and somehow Trump (who doesn’t understand economics in the least bit) is going to attempt to sell his batshit crazy interpretation of what he wishes tariffs would be and how he wishes that they would work, some method by which payments are made to the U.S. treasury and local jobs are created.
This is raving lunacy and the downturn in the markets reflect it. People are running scared and so they should be. “Don’t look at your 401(K)” is the new “Don’t look up.” And that’s only the beginning. All the indicators for a recession are in place and “Liberation Day” will be the match to light the fuse.
Trump administration officials have developed a framework to implement a blanket 20% tariff rate on a majority of imports, the Washington Post reported Tuesday morning, citing three anonymous sources.
After heavily teasing reciprocal tariffs in February, Trump pushed back the implementation of those levies to at least April 1, the date he ordered the Commerce and Treasury departments to complete studies on what the policies may look like in practice.
Trump said to reporters March 21 he shifted the “Liberation Day” reciprocal tariff date from April 1 to April 2 because he “didn’t want [it] to be April Fool’s Day because then nobody would believe what I said.”
This is Trump in P.T. Barnum mode. He believes on some level that he can gaslight the world into making his fantasy tariff plan work because he managed to gaslight the United States that he could fix the grocery prices and end the Ukraine war on Day One. He did neither.
But a senile, demented Trump is going for the gusto. Watch the stock market go down with it. And watch what Europe does.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Union’s European Commission, warned Tuesday the bloc is prepared to respond swiftly to Trump’s to-be-announced tariffs. “We do not necessarily want to retaliate but, if it is necessary, we have a strong plan to retaliate and we will use it,” said von der Leyen. Last year, the U.S. imported $606 billion worth of EU goods and exported $370 billion worth of goods to the bloc, according to the office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
What Will Trump’s ‘liberation Day’ Plan Include?
Trump muddied the waters in that press conference when he said there will be “flexibility” on his tariffs, while The Wall Street Journal reported Trump won’t announce April 2 actions on hot-button sectors like semiconductor chips and cars as he’s previously indicated. Trump said in a March 25 interview with Newsmax he’ll “probably be more lenient than reciprocal, because if I was reciprocal, that would be very tough for people,” adding there will be “some exceptions.” April 2 is also the date when exemptions on goods from Trump’s 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, the U.S.’ biggest trade partners, are due to expire.
Nobody knows what’s going to happen tomorrow or in weeks to come. The worst case scenario, which is increasingly more and more likely, is that Trump will tank the economy and cause the worst recession since the 1970’s.
In just 2 months, you have transformed a thriving, bustling economy into one on the brink of recession.
You've transformed America from the cherished friend of the world into a country not to be trusted.
You've transformed our shining city on a hill into a shithole country that…
— BrooklynDad_Defiant!☮️ (@mmpadellan) March 31, 2025
The tweet ends “that even Canada is pissed at. And you’ve transformed the White House into a 3-ring prison circus filled with criminals and clowns, at levels never seen before.” Again to quote Rick Wilson, “the White House is now a whorehouse and a casino.” That’s about it.
Trump is going to do a crazy spin of the roulette wheel and hope for a miracle and the fact is, he would do better at gambling because at least there is an element of chance there. This is economics. It works according to fixed rules and you can’t rewrite the rules into some fantasy vision, like in Alice In Wonderland, “The words mean what you want them to mean.”
Let us learn from the sheer balls that Cory Booker displayed this week. Let us see more of that coming out of the Democratic party. Because Trump is about to self-immolate. Bigly. Tomorrow will be a really big shoe, as Ed Sullivan used to say. Trumpty is going to fall on his ass — along with the world markets. Don’t look up and don’t look at your 401(K).
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Zoomers, if you can spare a few bucks to keep us trekking through cyberspace, we would be much obliged. And thank you for coming here to read. Ursula
Although I’m broke thanks to the corrupt family court…I just donated a small amount to Corey. Any Democrat willing to stand and fight deserves the money. Great movie. Unfortunately the whole thing turned on his mentor finally cracking and admitting the truth. Claude Rains might have been corrupt but he had a conscience. Seems congress, the administration, and the Supreme Court are filled with sociopaths. The crowning speech was near the end when they brought in full mail bags of paid for criticism of Smith,(sound familiar?). They believed that would do him in finally. His response: You think I’m licked? Well I’m not licked! I’m going to stay right here and fight for this lost cause no matter if this room gets filled with lies like these! Clearly Corey isn’t licked, and neither am I. I suspect the sheer number of us, not licked, must keep some of them up at night knowing they are supporting nazis. Now if only some of his colleagues would take the baton and RAISE HELL AT EVERY TURN OF THE ROAD! Mel Gibson, in Braveheart, ignored the nobles at the first battle and turned to ride out to meet the king’s emissaries. When they asked him: where are you going?(not being a noble). He replied: I’m going to pick a fight! Goddamn America…NOW. NOW IS THE TIME TO PICK A FIGHT! THERE WON’T BE ANOTHER. Hell…lost causes are the meat and potatoes of we peasants. Nothing new there. Or…as Dylan noted in Like A Rolling Stone…when you ain’t got nothing…you got nothing to lose. Most of us are on the way to nothing to lose. The most dangerous men I’ve ever met also had nothing to lose…lifers in the pen. These boys in our government are rich, powerful, pampered assholes. They have a lot to lose. It’s up to us to make sure they do lose. Thanks for the reminder Corey.
I’ll contact Tillis’ and Budd’s offices tomorrow and tell them both (or more accurately their voicemail – their staff don’t answer phone calls anymore) our state deserves Senators like Cory Booker. But instead we’ve ONLY got useless Trump fluffers/ass-wipers like them. Budd we are stuck with for a good while but next year we can send Tillis packing. If Cal Cunningham would have kept his goddam dick in his pants and stayed faithful to his wife Tillis would have lost last time. I am a law abiding person but it’s 50/50 on whether I can remain so if I were to find myself face-to-face with Cunningham. Because every instinct in me would say ‘punch that asshole in the mouth and then kick him in the balls as hard as you can!’
Well, I posted my own article saying Booker stood up, and now WE rank and file Democrats have to have his back.
Isn’t it telling that it took a black man to stand up so powerfully for America and its once-cherished freedoms? John Lewis would have been very proud of a man he mentored. Every word spoken by Senator Booker is now enshrined in the Congressional Record for posterity to read and contemplate; how soon before the Trumpian fascists try to expunge them, I wonder?
Probably start today. I wonder when the hairdo running the DOJ will issue an arrest warrant for Booker for state terrorism? Proud of yourself Garland????
To my dying moment, Scott, I will never understand why Biden didn’t yank the spineless dithery Garland out of his plush office and replace him with an actual Attorney General. Occasionally I wonder if he, like other politicians, couldn’t resist the temptation to stick their heads in the sand just a bit longer in hopes all evil would just go away. We’re now reaping the rewards of that weakness.
He was a career beauracrat. They aren’t known for taking risks or have the life experience to know there ARE evil killers with no conscience. So called decent people usually have no experience with true evil. They like to believe good will triumph over evil without THEM putting THEIR ass on the line. Biden and Garland could have stopped this early but DIDN’T, and now children ARE GOING TO DIE. In my book THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERYTHING TRUMP DOES. PHUCKING SPINELESS BEAURACRATS.
“Liberation Day” = Recession Day.