Today's News: Trump has a sad that the world is mean to America. Well, bub, you ain't seen nothin' yet! #ETTD

Listening to Trump's babbling at his big Tariffs press conference this afternoon, he was talking again about his yearning for the Belle Epoque -- those golden olden days at the end of the 19th Century, when the US government was small enough to be financed by the tariffs it collected, meaning that the poor and the middle class ended up paying a disproportionate share of their income for those tariffed goods, while the wealthy paid a relative pittance. In Trump's mind, that was just marvelous - noblesse oblige and all that. 

So this afternoon, he again talked about what a mistake it was in 1913 that the US decided to collect income taxes instead of financing everything with tariffs.
Then he went on about how poorly the United States has been treated by the world -- yes, we're all been so mean to the poor poor United States, forcing them to pay for the best military in the world and to put up those bases all over, demanding to use the US dollar as the world currency, requiring them to fight wars everywhere, making them develop world-class universities and industries and lead the world in democratic governance -- have they ever had it rough!

Then he holds up a placard with a list of tariffs on it that nobody could read, and keeps on talking.

I expected a marching band and a juggling act too, but then CBC cut away so I didn't see them whenever they showed up.

As Alex Ballingall at the Toronto Star wrote in their live coverage piece:

This feels very Trumpy to me: a global audience fraught with anxiety about how his actions will vapourize wealth and jobs, learning how hard they’re getting hit by squinting at a placard the president is clutching in the White House Rose garden.

I see that Trump, as well as rambling like an idiot, is using state of the art (circa 1980) presenting techniques with his Eurovision style scoreboard to describe his new tariffs.#trumptariffs #trump pic.twitter.com/oxLNbZsyuC

— Marcy Jay (@wisebirdswords) April 2, 2025

Today's News: CTV scurries away from Rachel Gilmore

 

I am appalled that CTV would hire Gilmore then fire her immediately because of Conservative push-back. Are they so out-of-touch with Canadian social media that they didn't realize they were going to get this kind of crazy reaction from the Cons, and they would need to expect it and figure out how to deal with it? 

Its like the CTV bosses have no idea that the journalists they want to hire are prominent because they have an independent profile and national standing (oh yeah -- Lisa LaFlame!)

I won't repeat the blow-by-blow that LeBrun reports, but here is how his article ends:
Luke LeBrun / Press Progress

CTV Cancelled a Fact-Checking Segment in Response to Political Pressure From Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives
Audio recording shows CTV cancelled an ‘election misinformation’ segment with journalist Rachel Gilmore after online backlash from conservatives
...Gilmore says she worries about the message CTV is sending to other journalists, especially women, people of colour and younger journalists, who will feel chilled about covering issues impacting vulnerable communities and democracy for fear they will suffer professional consequences if they become a target too.
“Newsrooms should stand by their journalists,” Gilmore said. “These campaigns are disproportionately deployed against women and against people of colour, and that means that those are the people who will be disproportionately taken off of the airwaves when newsrooms give in to these bad faith campaigns.”
“The only way you can control it is by reducing your presence online and not covering the kinds of stories that piss these people off … The reason these people initially hated me was because I covered vaccines, the Freedom Convoy, the far-right and rising neo-Nazi and white supremacist movements within our country.”
Despite the threat of online harassment and pressure campaigns designed to make journalists pay a price professionally for using their voices and exercising their right to free expression, Gilmore says she will “not stop telling stories about things threatening our democracy and our society.”
“I didn’t get into journalism because I wanted to see my name on CTV News,” Gilmore said. “I got into it because I want to make the world slightly less shitty.”
“I cover these stories because they help people.”

Looks like Trump is creating new world alliances. But they're against America...

It has only been five months since America voted for Trump instead of Harris, but the world is changing rapidly in response to what Trump is doing to America.

Tonight I'm reading about the alliances that are forming against America now. Trump and his goblins thought they could have all of it their own way, but that isn't going to work out very well, I don't think. 

As fascism in America rises, people are beginning to flee:

View on Threads

People can move but nations cannot.