No wonder we're failing.

What part of “idiot” does Bloomberg News not get? We have a news item informing us that Trump’s import tariffs on steel do not protect the steel industry that gets so many things wrong you’d think it’s trying to sabotage his run for the White House.

It starts with “JSW Steel’s India-based parent company” reducing production at a Texas plant despite “tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum imported to the U.S.” The article goes on to tell us some weeks ago a stupid and ignorant Fox newsman (Bloomberg didn’t use those adjectives) wondered if the tariffs might hurt the plant, “given that much of the raw steel processed at the mill was imported from India and Mexico.”

The plant manager’s reply boiled down to, “Of course not because we support Trump.” He was counting on an exemption on the tariffs, which he didn’t get because he’s importing the steel. (And now we're going to have the grits hit the fan because India is supporting Trump.)

Now, the Bloomberg article tells us, “A big piece of the Baytown project has been postponed indefinitely, in part because of Trump’s tariffs.” But mostly, of course, because the project was based on using imported steel, which is subject to the tariffs. Hello?

The article becomes less and less in contact with reality as it goes on. It tells us that the company’s manager claims that the company, “set out two years ago to do precisely what Trump and his trade hawks said the tariffs would help accomplish: reestablish the U.S. as a premier producer of steel.” And it’s going to do that by importing steel. What?

I don’t know what role Bloomberg plays with his newspaper, but having his name connected to this kind of gibberish does not get him my vote.

No, It's Not Boring

Upon looking closely you will see that the daily high temperature varies by one degree, and next Friday will be "mostly sunny" instead of "sunny."  Weather forecasters are swooning with breathless excitement.

Marriage is Great

You run out of coffee one time in 26 years, and your wife harasses you from then on as if it is something you plan to do on a weekly basis. "Are we okay on coffee?" becomes a nightly refrain. She is a lovely person.

This Is News?

NBC Evening News has a segment every night now about a “massive storm” which is either currently or soon will be “sweeping the nation.” So desperate have they become to present this feature that they are reporting storms which will contain “winds of up to 30 mph, and as much as four inches of snow.”

Even as far south as northern Alabama, that is not really a newsworthy storm, but they have to do their bit for global warming climate change.

They also have a nightly segment on the Chinese virus. They refer to it as a “deadly virus" or a “killer,” despite the fact that 98% of people infected by it do not die. The SARS virus is still around and kills 9.6% of people who come down with it, but the media ignores SARS while hyperventilating about coronavirus, which kills 2% of its victims.

The Chinese virus has caused about 600 deaths worldwide, at this point, and is headlining daily while the common flu, having killed more than 10,000 this year in the United States alone, doesn’t so much as get a vaccination advisory.

I know… Besides which, my wife keeps admonishing me. I watch this stuff so that I have something to write about when there’s no football games on.

A Question

If Trump were to say something in the SOTU tomorrow night that really pissed off the Republicans, and they responded by voting on Wednesday to convict Trump and remove him from office, would Democrats still be insisting that the verdict was illegitimate because there were no witnesses? I think we all know the answer to that.

A Surplus of Incompetence

The House issues subpoenas and the White House rejects them. There is nothing new about this. The White House, regardless of which party occupies it, almost always rejects subpoenas from Congress. Congress then goes to court, gets a judge to enforce the subpoena, and the process moves on.

When this House Committee met with resistance to its subpoenas, however, instead of going to court for what would most certainly be resolution in its favor, it threw in its hand and charged the President with "Obstruction of Congress." The reason they gave for not pursuing legal enforcement of their subpoenas was that the issue was urgent and time did not permit the lengthy process of obtaining court rulings.

In 2000, on the issue of Bush v. Gore and the presidential election, the case went from the initial court filing in Florida on November 17th to a final ruling by the Supreme Court on December 13th. That was a time lapse of 26 days, 7 days less than the 33 days that Nancy Pelosi held the Articles of Impeachment in her office in a (failed) effort to coerce the Senate into conducting the trial in a manner of her choosing.

Sheer logic would dictate a desire to keep the issue in the House of Representatives for the greatest possible degree of resolution. If the charging party cannot win a battle with the President in the House, where they have a majority, why in the world would they punt that battle to the Senate, where they do not have a majority?

Democrats will undoubtedly go forward saying that "the trial was unfair," and that the President and the Republican Party obstructed the process. They are already doing so, in fact, before the verdict has even been reached.

In reality, however, the failure was entirely predictable and was entirely due to a long series of unforced errors by the Democratic Party. As is usual with this party, they showed no real stomach for a fight, and when they encountered push back, they simply caved.