dumnezero

Donald Trump is starting off his morning by doing something he’s done quite often, which is threaten tariffs on major US trading partners.

The latest salvo is aimed at the European Union and their alcoholic beverage industry, particularly France and its world-renowned vineyards. Trump says he’ll put tariffs on what the bloc exports to the United States, after the EU yesterday imposed their own levies on American whiskey in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs on imports of aluminum and steel.

The escalatory tit-for-tat is why these things are referred to as trade wars. Here’s what Trump wrote, on Truth Social:

The European Union, one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World, which was formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States, has just put a nasty 50% Tariff on Whisky. If this Tariff is not removed immediately, the U.S. will shortly place a 200% Tariff on all WINES, CHAMPAGNES, & ALCOHOLIC PRODUCTS COMING OUT OF FRANCE AND OTHER E.U. REPRESENTED COUNTRIES. This will be great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the U.S.

Donald Trump has spent the week dizzyingly going back and forth on everything from tariffs to Russia to supporting veterans to Elon Musk. It's been a week of 180-degree-turned-360-degree turns causing confusion and chaos. Grant breaks down the biggest flip-flops, what they mean, and what to know next Grant also talks to Cory Doctorow, the inventor of the word "Enshitification," journalist, author, and activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (link below) to talk all about what enshitification is and how it applies to the US government now.

A longer article about energy costs, especially heating, and climate adaptation efforts, and how right-wing parties are profiting from fake populism about cheap fossil energy needs.

A relevant snippet:

In times of extremely high living costs, carbon pricing not softened by support measures is of enormous social and political significance: those who can afford to renovate or install renewable energy sources will be less impacted, whereas those who are poor or renting will have to spend much more of their income on heating costs and will furthermore be unable to free themselves of the dependency on CO2. Across Europe, a dispute over carbon pricing has erupted.

“We are currently seeing attempts by the conservative and right-wing factions in the European Parliament as well as by member states and the business community to undo climate efforts,” says Green Party MEP Michael Bloss. “It would make sense to start working now on establishing programmes for the potential revenues so money can be paid out directly from 1 January 2026. Otherwise, there is a risk of the ETS2 becoming a social trap from 2027.”

...

According to Sibylle Braungardt from the Öko-Institut in Freiburg, there are large subsidy programmes in Germany for energy-efficient renovations and replacements of heating systems by more sustainable alternatives. However, it is mostly high-income households taking advantage of these programmes. “It’s problematic if homeowners can renovate and install heat pumps to pay their way out of carbon pricing but renters cannot.”

A closely watched civil trial that began in North Dakota last week could bankrupt Greenpeace and chill environmental activism as the climate crisis continues to deepen. The multimillion-dollar lawsuit by Energy Transfer, the oil corporation behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, claims Greenpeace organized the mass protests and encampment at Standing Rock between 2016 and 2017 aimed at stopping construction of the project. Although the uprising at Standing Rock was led by Indigenous water defenders, Energy Transfer is instead going after Greenpeace for $300 million in damages — an amount that could effectively shutter the group’s U.S. operations. “This case is not just an obvious and blatant erasure of Indigenous leadership, of Indigenous resistance,” says Deepa Padmanabha, a senior legal adviser for Greenpeace USA. “It is an attack on the broader movement and all of our First Amendment rights to free speech and peaceful protest.”

DemocracyNow original video is here (yes, they host their own videos too): https://www.democracynow.org/2025/3/4/greenpeace - you can find a transcript on this page.

The book Unhumans, by Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec, is a fascist manifesto. It argues that the “Great Men of History” should take their cues from homicidal dictators like Augusto Pinochet and Francisco Franco, reject reason and democracy, and ruthlessly annihilate the gangs of communist “unhumans” who are currently threatening to destroy the United States. It explicitly advocates “eye for an eye” justice, promising a new McCarthyism complete with blacklists, along with the immediate banning of all teachers’ unions. It is perhaps the most paranoid, hateful, and terrifying book I have ever picked up. (I say this as someone who has read Mein Kampf.) And it comes with a warm and supportive blurb from Ohio senator J.D. Vance, who is currently the Republican party’s vice presidential nominee.

Trump’s executive order stripped agencies of their independence by making them directly accountable to a part of the presidency: the office of management and budget (OMB). The OMB is led by Russell Vought, founder of the rightwing Center for Renewing America (CRA) thinktank and one of the primary authors of the Project 2025 plan for an authoritarian takeover of government.

What is happening with your time? From the increased screen time and slop, to addiction and antisocial behavior - the world seems to be on fire, yet we seem to be disengages, isolated and lonely.

This video is about death of the community, screen addiction, AI generated slop media, it is about the theft of your wage and time by the ultrarich and the failure of the state to take control of the social decay, climate change, and economic threats - and so much more.

edit: seems that gif images don't work, so here's the gif:

edit2: another angle from a different TV camera: https://i.imgur.com/Jezrgss.gif (I'm not embedding it because it's larger and one animation is enough)

For context:

Recent https://piefed.social/post/499497

Source video on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Romania/comments/1iyrln3/c%C4%83lin_georgescu_face_salutul_nazist_la_ie%C8%99irea_de/ from a Romanian TV (I wouldn't call it "news", it's like OAN for Trump now)

Broader issue of election meddling:

https://www.sgdsn.gouv.fr/publications/manipulation-dalgorithmes-et-instrumentalisation-dinfluenceurs-enseignements-de

https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2025/02/07/algorithmic-invasions-how-information-warfare-threatens-nato-s-eastern-flank/

Here's the short gif: https://i.imgur.com/OR56MVe.gif

Not sure if this should be NSFW.

"The Perfect Pedestrian ; or, Making the World Safe for Motocracy."

Cartoon in Punch Magazine, Feb 2, 1927.

This is the official episode on YouTube, it may not work in some locations. The relevant segment starts at around 9:00.

I'm posting it here because the Trump regime is making a big point of protecting "Big Tech" interests in Europe. And the moderation challenge presented by Oliver shows why "Big Tech", at least social media, needs to be severely limited, if not kicked out entirely.

It's a conflict and the moderation issue is a key aspect of it because, without moderation, these platforms become superspreaders for scams, misinformation, and divisive & delusional conservative "narratives" (as they call them). It is cyberwarfare and also social engineering, and the Trump regime is demanding maximum deregulation.

From the video description:

John Oliver discusses Facebook’s controversial new plans for content moderation and DOGE’s continued firing of government workers, including some of America’s best dorks: Park rangers.