by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
It's been a busy week at the White House, one that has left more than a few groups of stakeholders scratching their heads as they try to figure out just what the hell is going on.
Donald Trump, bitterly dismayed that the Mueller investigation won't just go away, is once again attacking his attorney general, Alabama cracker Jeff Sessions, in what appears to be an effort to get the diminutive Sessions to resign. Trump, of course, could just fire Sessions, but perhaps he is concerned about offending the good voters of Alabama. Trump's interference in Alabama politics last year caused the Republican Party to lose a U.S. Senate seat.
Word broke this week that Trump's top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster were on the way out, but now there seems to be backtracking on both of those stories, with some referring to McMaster's pending ouster as "fake news." That seems to be an emerging White House news ploy: leak it - and if it raises too much stink, quickly call it fake news.
Hope Hicks, a fashion model who joined the Trump campaign in 2016 with no political experience and quickly rose to become the White House Communications Director and one of Trump's most trusted advisers, announced her resignation this week one day after telling a House investigative committee that she had told "white lies" for her boss. Grumpy Trumpy was not pleased with Hicks' outburst of honesty, no matter how ravishing her physical beauty.
Trump son-in-law and White House sycophant Jared Kushner seems to have given up fighting rumors that he is using his position within government to secure loans and favors his his financially-strapped family businesses. This week the dejected Kushner stood by helpless as Chief of Staff John Kelly yanked his "Top Secret" security clearance because of Kushner's continuing failure to pass a background check. Kelly was able to act because Trump finally quit protecting Jared. Now the new rumor is that Trump has tired of his daughter, Ivanka, and he useless husband Jared being underfoot in the White House and wants John Kelly to fire them both. One must wonder - will he fire the grandkids, too?
Somewhere during the week from hell Trump met at the White House with some members of Congress where he chided Republicans for fearing the National Rifle Association and then proposed some gun safety measures that have been long and virulently opposed by the NRA and the gun lobby. At one point he said something about taking the guns of dangerous people first - and worrying about their due process second. That heresy made headlines at home and abroad. The following evening the NRA came to the White House and apparently corrected Trump's thinking.
The NRA-Trump dance is called the "wishy-washy" and it involves stepping around and over the bodies of dead children.
Then, when Trump decided that his week needed even more drama, he suddenly announced new import duties on steel (25%) and aluminum (10%). This announcement appeared to be a surprise to his allies in Congress as well as to some of his aids at the White House - and it was made without prior notice to America's long-term trading partners. It was another Trump seat-of-the-pants strategic move designed to throw his inner-circle, outer-circle, and the world at large into a fit of economic chaos while giving Trump fifteen or twenty minutes of good material to tweet about.
Two concerns have been aired thus far about Trump's sudden and seemingly impulsive move to place tariffs on steel and aluminum coming into this country. The first is that this brash maneuver could, and undoubtedly will, start a trade war that will result in other countries putting tariffs on American goods. Harley-Davidson, Levi-Strauss, and the American bourbon industry have already received threats of import duties from the European Union as a result of Trump's move on steel and aluminum, and China is talking about placing a tariff on American soybeans. (Congressman Jason Smith, are you paying attention? Do you really want the farmers in Missouri's 8th selling fewer tons of soybeans abroad?) If history is any sort of guide, a trade war will result and American consumers and taxpayers will suffer from Trump's folly - but, of course, few people in the White House apparently read anything, much less history.
The other problem is that the tariffs on the incoming steel and aluminum will raise prices of items made with those materials within the United States. Trump, a man who notoriously used Chinese steel in the construction of one of his Las Vegas ventures - and probably others as well, knows this from first-hand experience. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross went on the air this week in support of the tariff while holding up a can of Campbell's Soup and saying the increase in the price of the can would be minimal. There is no acceptable "minimal" increase when a family living below the poverty level is scraping together every penny it can muster in order to buy a week's worth of groceries.
And then there's beer.
MillerCoors, one of the nation's largest beer brewers, said yesterday that the increase in aluminum prices will cause their company and others to lay off workers, and they blatantly hinted that the increase in costs would be passed on to consumers. Of course, consumers will bear the brunt of all of the price increases - they always do. Tax windfalls go to corporations and stockholders, rising costs go to consumers.
So, for all of my dentally-challenged, single-digit IQ neighbors down the road, Trump is raising the price of beer - and his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, is coming after your weed. How much greater can America get than that? Trump is your creature - deal with him!
Citizen Journalist
It's been a busy week at the White House, one that has left more than a few groups of stakeholders scratching their heads as they try to figure out just what the hell is going on.
Donald Trump, bitterly dismayed that the Mueller investigation won't just go away, is once again attacking his attorney general, Alabama cracker Jeff Sessions, in what appears to be an effort to get the diminutive Sessions to resign. Trump, of course, could just fire Sessions, but perhaps he is concerned about offending the good voters of Alabama. Trump's interference in Alabama politics last year caused the Republican Party to lose a U.S. Senate seat.
Word broke this week that Trump's top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster were on the way out, but now there seems to be backtracking on both of those stories, with some referring to McMaster's pending ouster as "fake news." That seems to be an emerging White House news ploy: leak it - and if it raises too much stink, quickly call it fake news.
Hope Hicks, a fashion model who joined the Trump campaign in 2016 with no political experience and quickly rose to become the White House Communications Director and one of Trump's most trusted advisers, announced her resignation this week one day after telling a House investigative committee that she had told "white lies" for her boss. Grumpy Trumpy was not pleased with Hicks' outburst of honesty, no matter how ravishing her physical beauty.
Trump son-in-law and White House sycophant Jared Kushner seems to have given up fighting rumors that he is using his position within government to secure loans and favors his his financially-strapped family businesses. This week the dejected Kushner stood by helpless as Chief of Staff John Kelly yanked his "Top Secret" security clearance because of Kushner's continuing failure to pass a background check. Kelly was able to act because Trump finally quit protecting Jared. Now the new rumor is that Trump has tired of his daughter, Ivanka, and he useless husband Jared being underfoot in the White House and wants John Kelly to fire them both. One must wonder - will he fire the grandkids, too?
Somewhere during the week from hell Trump met at the White House with some members of Congress where he chided Republicans for fearing the National Rifle Association and then proposed some gun safety measures that have been long and virulently opposed by the NRA and the gun lobby. At one point he said something about taking the guns of dangerous people first - and worrying about their due process second. That heresy made headlines at home and abroad. The following evening the NRA came to the White House and apparently corrected Trump's thinking.
The NRA-Trump dance is called the "wishy-washy" and it involves stepping around and over the bodies of dead children.
Then, when Trump decided that his week needed even more drama, he suddenly announced new import duties on steel (25%) and aluminum (10%). This announcement appeared to be a surprise to his allies in Congress as well as to some of his aids at the White House - and it was made without prior notice to America's long-term trading partners. It was another Trump seat-of-the-pants strategic move designed to throw his inner-circle, outer-circle, and the world at large into a fit of economic chaos while giving Trump fifteen or twenty minutes of good material to tweet about.
Two concerns have been aired thus far about Trump's sudden and seemingly impulsive move to place tariffs on steel and aluminum coming into this country. The first is that this brash maneuver could, and undoubtedly will, start a trade war that will result in other countries putting tariffs on American goods. Harley-Davidson, Levi-Strauss, and the American bourbon industry have already received threats of import duties from the European Union as a result of Trump's move on steel and aluminum, and China is talking about placing a tariff on American soybeans. (Congressman Jason Smith, are you paying attention? Do you really want the farmers in Missouri's 8th selling fewer tons of soybeans abroad?) If history is any sort of guide, a trade war will result and American consumers and taxpayers will suffer from Trump's folly - but, of course, few people in the White House apparently read anything, much less history.
The other problem is that the tariffs on the incoming steel and aluminum will raise prices of items made with those materials within the United States. Trump, a man who notoriously used Chinese steel in the construction of one of his Las Vegas ventures - and probably others as well, knows this from first-hand experience. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross went on the air this week in support of the tariff while holding up a can of Campbell's Soup and saying the increase in the price of the can would be minimal. There is no acceptable "minimal" increase when a family living below the poverty level is scraping together every penny it can muster in order to buy a week's worth of groceries.
And then there's beer.
MillerCoors, one of the nation's largest beer brewers, said yesterday that the increase in aluminum prices will cause their company and others to lay off workers, and they blatantly hinted that the increase in costs would be passed on to consumers. Of course, consumers will bear the brunt of all of the price increases - they always do. Tax windfalls go to corporations and stockholders, rising costs go to consumers.
So, for all of my dentally-challenged, single-digit IQ neighbors down the road, Trump is raising the price of beer - and his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, is coming after your weed. How much greater can America get than that? Trump is your creature - deal with him!
1 comment:
Not so long ago, state by state, the legal definition of beer changed. Light or Lite beer used to be 4.7% alcohol by volume (abv) is suddenly 4.2% abv. Grocery store beer has forever been 3.2% alcohol by weight. The difference between 4.2% abv and 3.2% is negligible where the difference between 5% abv and 3.2% abw is substantial. Folks may remember being young and able to drink the 3.2% abw beer in Kansas at age 18 while Missouri’s drinking age was 21 and their liquor stores proudly had the 5% displayed. Now days the watered down stuff is called grocery store beer.
Beer manufacturers pulled this trick off so that they could spend less on route sales persons and vehicles to mom and pop liquor stores. Instead they want to sell to the large grocery stores and places like Walmart. The mom and pop stores, if they don’t like the mix of watered down beer can’t expect their local distributor to sell them 5% and 4.7% abv beers anymore. If they go to the distributor to pick up their order they are treated like the red haired step children of an uncle thrice removed from polite family functions. Mom and pop waste much of a day just getting what they should be able to order from their route sales persons.
Beer drinkers are either quitting the watered down beer because it gives them headaches and causes too frequent trips to the powder room or are switching to craft beers. Local independent brewers, not big brewers masquerading as craft beer purveyors, make more flavorful and stronger beer.
In the final analysis the big brewers were going to cut these jobs anyway and Trump just gave them an excuse. America has silently changed the way it makes beer in order to make sure the large retailers dominate the market and distributors maximize their profits. If you find yourself drinking more and enjoying it less check the alcohol content on your brew. Ask yourself when was the last time you saw 5% Michelob for sale anywhere?
Of course if the Keystone Pipeline keeps leaking low alcohol beer may be the new water. In the meantime check out your local microbrewers. Kind of makes me wish I still drank.
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