Extreme Commanders

Looks like Trump want to bump the Hegseth scandal out of the news cycle by tanking the economy and markets some more:

Trump to announce auto tariffs amid rattled markets and a global trade war

President Donald Trump is planning to announce automobile tariffs on Wednesday afternoon in the Oval Office, barreling forward with a whiplash economic strategy that has rattled markets and ignited a global trade war.

Trump previewed his “big, special announcement” on foreign-made cars with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick during a White House East Room event for Women’s History Month.

“We’re going to go with the tariffs on cars,” Trump said.

Final details on the auto tariffs remain under wraps. Trump suggested a potential 25% tariff on imported vehicles in February. He has not said whether there could be carve-outs for automobiles covered in the U.S.-Canada-Mexico Agreement, the regional trade deal that Trump negotiated during his first term.

Click on the link for the full article

Looks like they're going to get their favorite Judge for the Signalgate trial:

JUST IN: Judge James Boasberg has been assigned to the Signalgate lawsuit.

Trump Administration Abruptly Cuts Billions From State Health Services

States have been told that they can no longer use grants that were funding infectious disease management and addiction services.

The Department of Health and Human Services has abruptly canceled more than $12 billion in federal grants to states that were being used for tracking infectious diseases, mental health services, addiction treatment and other urgent health issues.

The cuts are likely to further hamstring state health departments, which are already underfunded and struggling with competing demands from chronic diseases, resurgent infections like syphilis and emerging threats like bird flu.

State health departments began receiving notices on Monday evening that the funds, which were allocated during the Covid-19 pandemic, were being terminated, effective immediately.

“No additional activities can be conducted, and no additional costs may be incurred, as it relates to these funds,” the notices said.

For some, the effect was immediate.

In Lubbock, Texas, public health officials have received orders to stop work supported by three grants that helped fund the response to the widening measles outbreak there, according to Katherine Wells, the city’s director of public health.

Click on the link for the full article

Drill, Baby, DOGE

Donald Trump ran a campaign on a commitment to “drill, baby, drill.” He promised to slash regulatory red-tape in order to ramp up American oil and gas production. And he’s stacked his administration with officials like Energy Secretary Chris Wright, the former head of a Denver-based oilfield service company.

But some in the oil industry have been unimpressed with the president’s actions so far. Even in parts of deep-red and oil-rich Oklahoma, there’s been disappointment.

That frustration is largely aimed at the slapdash approach of Trump’s and Elon Musk’s DOGE, and the uncertainty that their hurried attempt to shrink the federal government has injected into the oil industry.

Adam Trumbly, the superintendent for the Osage Agency of the Bureau of Indian Affairs—the federal agency that oversees oil and gas drilling on Osage Nation land—was fired last month as part of DOGE’s budget cuts. The superintendent plays a critical role in managing and permitting new oil projects in the Osage Nation. And his firing set off a wave of panic about the future of new investments in the region. A few weeks later, it was announced that the Osage Agency—which provides a wide range of services including resources to help operators drill—would close its doors once the building’s lease is up in September thanks to DOGE cuts.

As with a fair number of other DOGE cuts, some of the mess-up was later corrected. Much to the relief of oil producers and shareholders in the region, Trumbly was reinstated last week. (Trumbly did not respond to The Bulwark’s request for comment.) But the chaotic handling of the situation has left many of the mom-and-pop oil producers that operate in Osage County anxious about doing business there.

“While the superintendent is back, he’s been removed once by what can only be described as reckless incompetence—and it can happen again,” said Shane Matson, a subsurface geologist and the former president of the Osage Producers Association whose family has been in the oil industry in the region for four generations. “If you threaten to close the agency without a solution, when really you should triple the budget so we can ‘drill, baby, drill,’ the effect of that on the industry is ‘kill, baby, kill.’”

Oil production in Osage County has steadily declined over the past few decades, and producers have long complained about burdensome regulation. Today, the region only accounts for a small fraction of the nation’s oil production. (Long gone are the days when oil royalties paid to the Osage made them some of the richest people in the world, as depicted in Killers of the Flower Moon.)

Still, DOGE’s move-fast-and-break-things approach there could very well result in fewer barrels of oil being produced in the United States, undermining Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” mantra.

Click on the link for the full article

The foreign car tariff seems like a Way to get people to buy new Teslas.

Nice try Super Diddy.

CobraCommander wrote: Thu Mar 27, 2025 7:41 am

The foreign car tariff seems like a Way to get people to buy new Teslas.

Nice try Super Diddy.

People aren’t changing their habits. This will just help the used car more.

CobraCommander wrote: Thu Mar 27, 2025 7:41 am

The foreign car tariff seems like a Way to get people to buy new Teslas.

Nice try Super Diddy.

Teslas and oil doesn't go along very well...

Trump Tariffs on Canada Lumber Risk Pinching Toilet Paper Supply

President Donald Trump’s promised tariffs on softwood lumber risk disrupting the supply chain for something nobody wants to be caught without: toilet paper.

The Trump administration plans to almost double duties on Canadian softwood lumber to 27%, with the possibility of additional levies pushing the rate to more than 50%. While Trump advocates for new tariffs partly to bolster US manufacturing, they may also hit the availability of northern bleached softwood kraft pulp, or NBSK, a key component in making toilet paper and paper towels.

NBSK constitutes about 30% of standard US bathroom tissue and half of a typical paper towel, and is currently sourced primarily from Canada, said Brian McClay, chairman of TTOBMA, which tracks the global pulp market. He added that the US imported about 2 million tons of Canadian NBSK last year, highlighting the longstanding reliance of American paper-goods producers on pulp from their northern neighbor.
“Some of these mills in the United States, some of the big branded products, not only want softwood pulp from Canada, they want softwood pulp from this particular mill — they’ve been using it for 30 years and they will not change,” McClay said.

“If Canadian pulp mills close because they don’t have the fiber supply, I can’t think of any other option for them — they just can’t switch the recipe around,” he said.

The scenario risks reviving painful memories of pandemic-era toilet paper shortages, when store shelves were stripped bare amid panic buying. Another possibility: higher prices at the checkout counter.

Click on the link for the full article

Those internal poll numbers for the special election must have been bad for them to pull her nomination. All of that ass kissing...all for wrought. Tough scene