Quick Hits

VDH: China is starting a trade war it is doomed to lose, possibly catastrophically.

No one wants a "trade war" with China, or for that matter with any nation. Nonetheless, China has been waging one for years and is now locked in a tariff recalibration with the Trump administration.

In this American effort to find trade parity and equity, China can do some short-term damage to the U.S., especially in terms of ceasing exports of some pharmaceuticals, phones, and computers. But ultimately, it cannot win--and will eventually lose catastrophically. It will likely accept that reality sooner rather than later.

We are only in the first week of the escalating rhetoric and tariffs. But already China is appealing to its Asian rivals, Australia, and the EU to join in fighting the supposed American bully.

But so far, there are understandably few takers.

An exasperated China is now also running vintage Korean War-era propaganda videos of Mao Zedong bragging about how he was standing up to then-President Dwight Eisenhower.

Does Beijing really believe that airing ossified threats from decades ago--issued by the greatest mass killer in human history to the one U.S. president who warned of the military-industrial complex--is going to win over neutral nations?

Or maybe China thinks calls to Western nations to stop American trade "bullying" will resonate--this, from the greatest trade bully, cheat, and rogue commercial nation in history.

China is running a nearly $1-trillion trade surplus with the world. Its mercantilism is the result of market manipulations, product dumping, asymmetrical tariffs, patent, copyright and technology theft, a corrupt Chinese judicial system, and Western laxity--or what might be mildly called "bullying." The U.S. accounts for about a third of China's trade surplus, with most of the EU and Asian nations accounting for the other two-thirds.

In the past, third-party nations did not appreciate the ends to which China has gone to warp the international trading system. In one sense, unable to address their deficits with China, our friends and neutrals turned to America, where they sought to make up their trade asymmetries by going China-light and running surpluses with the U.S.

However much they criticize the United States, it is unlikely that European and Asian nations will join China--which imposes high tariffs and steals from them--in order to gang up on the U.S., which has tolerated massive trade deficits for decades.

To the degree that the world accepts China as an international commercial rogue nation, it does so out of fear --or, again, on the assumption it can recycle its deficits with Beijing by running surpluses with the vast open American market.

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The complexities of trade and tariffs present all sorts of minefields. But the Trump administration is beginning to navigate them, and its trajectory is rather simple. In the next 90 days, it will likely conclude trade deals with our allies and third parties that bring either tariff parity or no tariffs at all that will reduce the U.S. trade deficit.

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For now, Trump should persuade our allies that if they were not so subject to Chinese mercantilism, they would have more flexibility to ensure fair trade with the U.S.

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If China really does reduce most of its exports to the U.S., America will have to scramble for a year or so to establish new supply chains and some alternate importers of U.S. products. But after a year of gradual dislocation, China will begin to hemorrhage, and then quite suddenly, given the U.S. has almost all the advantages--if it chooses to use them.

One, if it ever comes to a real trade war, remember that nations with the higher tariffs and larger trade surpluses usually lose, given that their economies are far more dependent on mercantile exports and trade imbalances. Psychologically, it is far harder to convince the world of victimhood when tariffs and surpluses illustrate contrived trade aggression.

Two, consensual societies are far more flexible in dealing with external pressures and volatile public opinion. True, Trump must face a midterm election in 18 months. However, Xi Jinping may soon face a third of his export factory workforce unemployed--in a society that has no mechanism for them to vent tensions and objections peacefully.

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In terms of self-sufficiency, the U.S. is the world's largest oil and gas producer. China has four times America's population but only a third of its oil and gas production. China is desperately trying to catch the U.S. militarily but remains behind in both the quality and quantity of its manpower and munitions. It will take a decade or more to match the U.S. all-nuclear submarine fleet, eleven huge nuclear aircraft carriers, the sophistication and number of 4,000 fighters, bombers, and support aircraft, and the 5,000-6,000 nuclear weapons and the American nuclear triad delivery system.

More Cruel Analysis at the link.

VDH's point about China being susceptible to an energy embargo is interesting. Trump signed an executive order to boost US consumption of the huge amounts of coal it produces.

China is a major purchaser of US coal. To the extent US plants begin burning it for domestic energy production, it hurts China.

U.S. President Donald Trump signed executive orders on Tuesday that aim to boost coal production in his latest action that runs counter to global efforts to curb carbon emissions.

Coal-burning plants generate less than 20% of U.S. electricity, a drop from 50% in 2000, according to the Energy Information Administration, as fracking and other drilling techniques have hiked production of natural gas. Growth in solar and wind power has also cut coal use.

"We're bringing back an industry that was abandoned," Trump said at the White House, standing in front of about three dozen mostly male coal miners wearing hard hats.

"We're going to put the miners back to work," Trump said about a workforce that has sunk to about 40,000 from 70,000 ten years ago.

U.S. electricity demand is rising for the first time in two decades on growth in power-hungry data centers for artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, and cryptocurrencies.

EPA Director Lee Zeldin: Democrats must stop normalizing political violence.

Spoiler alert: They won't. They are prisoners to their most extremist fringes and their most extremist fringes are violent radical paramilitaries like antifa.

And AWFL women who fantasize about political violence and promote it like cowards while keeping their own lily-white hands clean of blood.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin appeared on Fox News Monday to urge "Democrats out of power" to condemn and distance themselves from a growing wave of politically motivated threats and violence.

In 2022, then-Republican New York gubernatorial candidate Zeldin experienced political violence when a shooting occurred just outside his Long Island home while his teenage daughters were inside. During an appearance on "The Ingraham Angle," Zeldin said the climate of political hatred is becoming dangerously normalized.

"There's an attempt right now to try to figure out how to oppose President Trump and the right. There are people out of power right now, and they're flailing. They can't figure out the right names to call, the right tactics to use, and they're getting more and more extreme," Zeldin said. "There's not a more important moment than right now for these Democrats who are out of power to be sending that message that this is from the fringe, zero tolerance, it won't be normalized, and if you are following me, that leader, you make it very clear that this is not welcome in this society in this moment."

Zeldin also urged leaders to reject fringe influences.

"This needs to be treated as the fringe. And there are people who are in politics who have individuals across the country who follow them," Zeldin told host Laura Ingraham when asked about his reaction to the ramped-up violence. "And these people in office have been following those people instead of leading them. This comes from the fringe. It needs to be treated as from the fringe, and it needs to be treated with zero tolerance."

The media is beginning to understand that they are no longer immune to defamation suits.

MSNBC host Ayman Mohyeldin was forced to scramble Sunday evening to correct a guest's claims that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was a "Russian agent."

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed in 2019 Gabbard was being "groomed" to run as a third-party candidate by Russia, but offered no evidence to back up the assertions. Danielle Moodie-Mills, host of the "Woke AF" podcast, and Mohyeldin had discussed the nomination of former Green Beret Joe Kent as director of the National Counterterrorism Center. (RELATED: Former Dem Rep Tulsi Gabbard Endorses Trump)

"I really hope that alternate universe me is really enjoying, like, a life that is nicer than where we are right now in this hellhole. You know, why are we shocked? She's -- you know, we learned that she was a Russian agent. They celebrated her, you know. So why do we think that?" Moodie-Mills said, prompting Mohyeldin to ask, "We learned that she was a Russian agent?"

"Yes," Moodie-Mills responded, with Mohyeldin asking, "Where did we learn that?"

Gabbard and the former first lady have feuded over foreign policy since 2019, when Gabbard launched a campaign for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 presidential election.

"From Russia. We had it mentioned by Hillary Clinton during her debate. Like, should we look into Tulsi Gabbard?" Moodie-Mills said, with Mohyeldin cutting in with, "Unproven."

"Unproven. Okay, okay," Moodie-Mills said, before Mohyeldin added, "Unproven. Allegation? No, I'm serious. I mean, 'agent' is a very strong word, of a foreign state."

Multiple hosts on the left-leaning corporate network in March had to issue corrections after The Associated Press retracted an article claiming Gabbard described President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin as "very good friends."

MSNBC hosts and guests routinely hyped the claims that Trump's 2016 campaign colluded with the Russian government to defeat Clinton and repeatedly had then-Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, who often made claims about alleged collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia, on the air.

"Very strong allegations. And I don't know anybody else that gets celebrated on Russian television other than, I don't know, Tucker Carlson. Right? Right. And Donald Trump. Right?" Moodie-Mills said. "So, people who don't have allegations about them don't get celebrated in this way."

"But why are we surprised that she would bring in a conspiracy theorist to lead one of the most important jobs and agencies?" Moodie-Mills continued. "But I -- you know, so it a shock? No, it's not. It's just -- it continues to make America dangerous to the world."

Gabbard, deployed to Iraq with the Hawaii National Guard, currently serves in an Army Reserve Civil Affairs unit, according to the Army Times.

A trans "athlete" is now the "women's" world champion in darts for the second year in a row.

Just recently, a transgender athlete (biological male) was "victorious" in a women's darts event that took place in the Netherlands, bringing a second straight championship to Noa-Lynn van Leuven. The competition happened in the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC), and to make this situation worse, the entity is celebrating van Leuven's "win."

What's funny about the celebration from PDC is the fact that they have comments disabled on their Twitter account, pretty much admitting what they're doing is wrong. They knew they were going to get hit with criticism.

Per the official website of PDC, "the 28-year-old conceded just five legs on her way to Event Nine glory at the Autotron, closing out an emphatic 5-0 victory over Stefanie Lueck to clinch a first Women's Series crown of 2025."

PDC also notes that the "victory marked van Leuven's sixth Women's Series title, which equals the tally of Japanese star Mikuru Suzuki."

What an accomplishment. It's almost as if he is doping with testosterone or something.

Children's skulls found at Aztec pyramid -- and the skeletons of many adult victims -- proving that they practiced child sacrifice en masse, but because "scientists" are just political propagandists and can never say that any non-white race ever committed a single historical sin, they label the practice of beheading children in a blood sacrifice to pagan gods "non-violent."

You and I may look at the practice of human sacrifice to appease the gods as barbaric, but apparently, these archaeologists see the temple as an example of a sophisticated culture whose influence was interwoven with other societies to build a vibrant, kinda, transnationalist community with a rich spiritual life.

[CBS "News:"]

An altar from the Teotihuacan culture, at the pre-Hispanic heart of what became Mexico, was discovered in Tikal National Park in Guatemala, the center of Mayan culture, demonstrating the interaction between the two societies, Guatemala's Culture and Sports Ministry announced this week.

The enormous city-state of Tikal, whose towering temples still stand in the jungle, battled for centuries with the Kaanul dynasty for dominance of the Maya world.

Far to the north in Mexico, just outside present day Mexico City, Teotihuacan -- "the city of the gods" or "the place where men become gods" -- is best known for its twin Temples of the Sun and Moon. It was actually a large city that housed over 100,000 inhabitants and covered around 8 square miles.

The still mysterious city was one of the largest in the world at its peak between 100 B.C. and A.D. 750. But it was abandoned before the rise of the Aztecs in the 14th century.

It's not mere speculation that the temple was used for the sacrifice of children. Skeletons have been unearthed along with the temple, and the practice of human sacrifice survived in the Americas until the evil Christian colonizers wiped it out along with the "civilizations" that practiced it.

Edwin Román, who leads the South Tikal Archaeological Project within the park, said the discovery shows the sociopolitical and cultural interaction between the Maya of Tikal and Teotihuacan's elite between 300 and 500 A.D.

Román said the discovery also reinforces the idea that Tikal was a cosmopolitan center at that time, a place where people visited from other cultures, affirming its importance as a center of cultural convergence.

María Belén Méndez, an archaeologist who was not involved with the project, said the discovery confirms "that there has been an interconnection between both cultures and what their relationships with their gods and celestial bodies was like."

"We see how the issue of sacrifice exists in both cultures. It was a practice; it's not that they were violent, it was their way of connecting with the celestial bodies," she said.

A lot of people are calling out CBS, and this "scientist," for claiming that murdering children is mostly peaceful.

"First it was 'nonviolent, peaceful rioting' and now it's "peaceful child sacrifices." What planet did these people come from?" Republican Georgia Rep. Mike Collins asked on X.

"I guess that makes it OK. Since they were connecting with their 'celestial bodies,'" WikiPedia co-founder Larry Sanger tweeted, adding "'it's not that they were violent' when they... slaughtered children."

The media has only two ways to describe Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

No, not "alleged MS-13 gang member."

No, not "illegal alien."

The media refer to him exclusively as either "Maryland man" or better still "Maryland father."

Whoopi Goldberg concedes that maybe it's a good idea to end the Department of Education, and the producers cut hard to a commercial break.

The Vigilant Fox @VigilantFox

HOLY SMOKES: Whoopi Goldberg just did the unthinkable--she backed one of Trump's fiercest ideas live on The View.

Dismantling the Department of Education.

The panel was stunned. ABC producers quickly cut to commercial.

And no, this isn't satire.

"I don't have to wait for the government to do it," Whoopi said. "We can do it."

Then came the bombshell: she said maybe tearing down the Department of Education is exactly what America needs.

"Maybe that is a good thing," she said. "Because maybe it will force us to make sure our kids actually get what they need."

She unleashed--calling on parents to step up and demand better from local leaders.

"I want to make sure, since you're taking all this money from my taxes, I want to make sure that my kids get exactly what they need."

And she wasn't finished.

"This is now in our hands," she said. "It's going to be tough, and nobody wants to do it, because it's a bitch--but you know what, if it comes down to your survival, this is what you got to do."

Then she ended the segment by glancing off camera and saying:

"They're telling me that we're going to be right back."

Cut to commercial.

posted by Ace at 06:35 PM

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