Author: ianrandalstrock

Trump Bloviates on Tariffs

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I want to comment on President Trump’s long “announcement” of a global tariff agenda just now in the Rose Garden, but what the hell was he talking about? He rambled from “my predecessors were stupid” to “there were shenanigans during the 2020 election” to “the United States is broke because every other country has been taking advantage of us forever.” The one specific that did catch my ear is that, in the world according to Trump, the Great Depression was caused by the Sixteenth Amendment (which introduced the income tax, in 1913), and that it did not end until sometime in the 1950s or 1960s (he said it was a long time after Franklin Roosevelt left office).

The one thing I can say is that he’s gotten away from claiming all those other countries will be the ones paying the United States for the tariffs. Apparently, somebody finally got to him to point out that the United States doesn’t pay “tariffs” to any other country.

After I posted the above on April 2, I saw what happened to the world’s stock markets, and late on April 3, I emailed President Trump the following:

I just looked at my accounts: I’m not happy with you, President Trump.

The economy was good, despite your campaign rhetoric saying otherwise. And then I watched your Rose Garden bloviating yesterday, and I looked at your chart of tariffs being charged against the US. And then I looked to see just where you got those numbers. We know where they came from, we know those aren’t actual tariffs charged on us, and we know you’re destroying the country (and quite possibly the global economy).

I also notice you never did bother releasing you tax returns. Are you, indeed, working for a foreign country?

And then this morning (April 4), I found this video from CNN, in which Phil Mattingly explains where the “tariff” numbers on that chart came from.

And then I found this other CNN video, in which Jim Cramer explains just how wrong these tariff over-reactions are.

Defunding intellectual freedom?

~ ianrandalstrock ~ 1 Comment

What is the value of intellectual freedom? of academic integrity? of political independence? The story just now on MSNBC was about the forthcoming meeting and negotiations between Harvard University and the Trump administration; that the government is demanding… well, I’m not entirely sure, other than the Trumpians are angry with the “liberal agenda supported by colleges and universities.”

I’m wondering what will happen if the leadership at Harvard can bring themselves to say “Our intellectual freedom, our academic integrity, is more important to the Harvard community than our federal funding. We have this massive endowment, so we’re going to draw on it to make up for the shortfall in federal funding. President Trump: you can shove your ideology.” Such a move, I think, would lead to an alumni fund-raising windfall. While the Trumpians might tout it as cutting needless federal spending, it could be viewed as a win by both sides. And who better to take that hit to show that Trumpism is not forever and ever than a university which was founded more than a century before the country in which it stands?

Mind you, I am emphatically in favor of rooting out the antisemitism poisoning college campuses. But it doesn’t seem to me that Harvard is dragging their feet on this issue.

And I’m going to throw in a few numbers which caught my ear. According to that MSNBC story, Harvard receives “$9 billion in federal grants and contracts.” Though the same report did also say that Columbia, after having theoretically acquiesced to similar demands, is still waiting for the $400 million in federal funds it receives to be restored.

I question that $9 billion, which may actually be an aggregate of many universities. This Washington Times piece from 2023 said Harvard had $3.3 billion in grants and contracts over the 2018–2022 period.

And in January, the Harvard Crimson said “In fiscal year 2024, the University received $686 million from federal agencies, accounting for two-thirds of its total sponsored research expenditures and eleven percent of the University’s operating revenue.”

But the point remains: can—should—a university bow to political whims, and change its policies to suit a presidential administration, which is by design temporary?

Yes, there is no place on college campuses—or anywhere else in the country—for supporters of kidnappers, rapists, and murderers. But on the other side of the discussion: is this what we have a government for? Isn’t this rather an issue to which a true Republican would have a laissez-faire attitude? Let the market decide, such a Republican would say. If people disagree with the university’s policies, they’ll stop donating to it, stop applying to be students there, stop respecting it. Apparently, the Trumpians are not so secure in their own beliefs to think they’ll win out in the marketplace of ideas, so they have to put the government’s financial thumb on the scale.

Antidiplomacy

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Listening to Vice President Vance speaking just now at Pituffik Space Base in Greenland, he said “we expect the people of Greenland will choose independence from Denmark,” and then we’ll cut a deal with them. What happens if the people of Greenland ultimately decide to not associate with the United States? To not become a US territory or protectorate?

All of this, mind you, came after the Vice President spent a long time bad-mouthing Denmark, saying they’ve done a terrible job. And looking at the broader picture, why does it seem to be that President Trump and his administration spend nearly all of their time denigrating, insulting, and attacking every ally the United States has had for the last eighty years, without expressing any real concerns about the countries which have not been our allies?

As I’m writing this, Chris Jansing on MSNBC just called it “antidiplomacy,” and I think that’s a very apt description of the Trump administration’s activity.

Democrats Can No Longer Afford Moral Purity

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I’ve said it before in a different context: when only one side is playing by the rules, they’re setting themselves up for a moral victory accompanied by a crushing actual defeat.

The Democratic party’s insistence on moral purity is what led them to purge their own Senator Al Franken. It’s what allowed Antonin Scalia’s Supreme Court seat to sit vacant for ten months, while Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s was filled in ten days. And it’s what continues to cause massive headaches for those of us who actually worry about the future of the country.

Chuck Schumer was absolutely correct in his vote for the “continuing resolution” to keep the government funded: voting against it is what the Trumpians wanted. There may have been moral purity in rejecting the bill, but then what? Shut down the government? Declare moral purity by not voting for the bill? That is exactly what the Trumpians wanted.

Indeed, they’re already doing it. Look at what has happened during Trump 2.0: USAID has been shut down. NOAA has been shut down. The Department of Education is nearly shut down. They’re shutting down the government piecemeal while patriotic ex-employees file pitiable lawsuits, hoping to keep their jobs.

Not adopting Speaker Mike Johnson’s continuing resolution would have done in one fell swoop what Trump & Co. are doing slowly, department by department: it would have shut everything down.

“But then shutting down the government would have been the Republicans’ fault,” the purest of the pure cry.

“So what?” respond the rational people. “That’s what they’re doing today. That’s what they want to do.” And that appears to be what the voters asked for.

Regardless of Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s commentary, there was no pathway to negotiate a clean four-week extension. If that negotiation could have occurred, it would have happened weeks ago. But Trump’s minions in the House had no interest in doing so. They have the majority there, so they don’t need to talk to the Democrats about anything.

Had the staunch Democrats succeeded in delaying the bill and shutting down the government, the Trumpians would have been celebrating. And they would have had no reason to negotiate anything to re-open it. We would be suffering through a government shutdown that would last until the next election, all while Trump and Elon Musk determine which pieces of the government are “necessary” and which are not. They would have had the time of their lives, selling off pieces of the government to their cronies at bargain prices, while the Democrats would be mewling for negotiations to fund and re-open the government.

I disagree—vehemently—with almost every action taken by the president and his gang of thieves. I disagree with their policies, their stated goals, and their methods. But the moral purity of the Democrats is a danger we can no longer afford. Adherence to the rules is a path to victory only if both sides are playing by the rules, and if the judges of the contest care about them. November 5, 2024, showed us that a plurality of American voters don’t care about following the rules, and that saddens me. But if we’re going to save our country from the predations of Trump 2.0, we’re going to have to get dirty, get down in the mud with our foes to fight back, hard.

Was Schumer morally impure for allowing the continuing resolution to pass the Senate? Yes. But was it the right thing to do in an attempt to save the country? Also, yes.

Cloty Cepeda (1934-2025)

~ ianrandalstrock ~ 1 Comment

I’ve just learned of the death of Clotilde “Cloty” Cepeda, at the age of 91. She was Greater New York Mensa’s Testing Coordinator when I was president of the group, and served as Secretary during my second term. I remember her as an always-cheerful participant and volunteer, and with her companion, Marty Merado (who also served on the board), she was a ubiquitous presence at GNYM events and Regional Gatherings far and wide.

In addition to making the Mensa experience so welcoming for so many, she also brought her grandchildren into the fold: Daniel “Danny” and Kathryn “Katie” McNickle were regular participants in our then-burgeoning Young Mensans program.

Born in Colombia, she had been living in a nursing home the last several years. Danny passed along the news that she passed away peacefully on March 11.

I’ll be paying my respects during the visitation Friday, March 14, at the Edward Lynch Funeral Home in Sunnyside. Details at this link: https://edwarddlynchfuneralhome.com/tribute/details/1984/Clotilde-Cepeda/obituary.html#tribute-start

Attached is a picture of the board in 1995. Cloty is in the blue shirt, third from the right.

Trump is still running… his mouth

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Tonight, Donald Trump bloviated for an hour and 39 minutes. It was a campaign speech, it was a complaint, it was a brilliant example of verbal masturbation, Donald Trump-style. It wasn’t terribly surprising, and it wasn’t at all unifying.

It took him only eight minutes to get around to telling us that Joe Biden was “the worst president in American history.”

He gave a long list of programs he called “fraud”—which in Trump English seems to be a synonym for “programs I don’t like or disagree with”—including money for a program “in the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of.” I’ve heard of it.

And he continued to threaten Panama and Greenland, saying “to enhance our national security, my administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal.” And that the canal was built for Americans, not others. He also encouraged Greenlanders to voluntarily associate with the United States, but then said “we need Greenland for international world security. And one way or another, we’re gonna get it.”

He rambled on about many other things, but frankly, there wasn’t enough new or interesting for me to bother reporting on it again.

One thought I did take away from the speech: whether he’s read the story or not, he seems to have completely embraced the idea in my story “The Necessary Enemy.” Specifically, that it takes a villain to make a hero, that we need an enemy in order to be the victor. Perhaps that’s why he’s always talking about enemies, and why he declared a variety of emergencies the day he was inaugurated. Perhaps that’s why he’s always struggling to “make America great again,” as if someone had somehow made America less. The only one making America less is Donald Trump, as he cedes our position of economic, political, and moral leadership on the world stage.

Telling SecComm that theft is wrong

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On CNN just now, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick expressed shock and amazement, that President Zelenskyy is demanding “all the land” back. That he can’t possibly want peace if he’s demanding reparations from Russia and all the land.

Let’s be clear, Secretary Lutnick: Russia attacked Ukraine, and Russia is occupying Ukrainian land. The president of Ukraine is not demanding something outrageous, not asking the world to give him a gift. He is saying he wants a what was taken from Ukraine: a return to status quo ante, the return of their occupied lands.

If Canadian troops had bombed Albany and crossed the Niagara River to take Western New York, wouldn’t we be demanding their departure in order to stop fighting back? Of course we would. Why is it so surprising that Ukraine wants their territory returned?

Either we recognize the territorial integrity of the nations of the Earth, or it’s open season for anyone with weapons to attack their neighbors simply because they want to.

He doesn’t speak for all Americans

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28 February 2025

Dear President Trump,

Today, I am ashamed. You sit in office as the most powerful man on the planet, but today, you used that position not to ennoble or uplift. You used it to belittle, to attack President Zelensky, a man who is the president of a smaller, weaker country. A man who was a guest in your office, seeking our help.

It was a shameful performance. A performance that—in hindsight—it appears you and your vice president have been plotting for the last several weeks. The cynic in me wonders how much President Putin is paying you, to so totally upend our history of defending the weak from the predations of the strong and ruthless. Rather, it appears you would prefer to be seen as one of those strong and ruthless.

Any man who must say “I am the king” is no true king. Similarly, any person who must attack a weakling is not truly powerful, and any man who demands obeisance and then belittles is no true man. And any president who takes every opportunity to attack his predecessor is obviously not nearly as great as that predecessor.

Today, I am embarrassed to be an American. That the rest of the world might think I agree with your words and condone your actions today is abhorrent to me. Thus, I make this letter public. Your words and actions in the Oval Office were not presidential, were not the words or actions of a true president, and have brought shame to our country.

In disappointment,

Ian Randal Strock

P.S. – Looking at all the toadies thanking you for “standing up for America” (in https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/02/support-pours-in-for-president-trump-vp-vances-america-first-strength/), I have to wonder who they thought you were standing up to? Do you think Ukraine is such a threat to the United States that you have to “stand up to Zelensky”? You didn’t stand up; you attacked a much smaller and weaker country.

Trump’s newest presidential tradition: protection rackets

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Words matter. And in all the discussion around President Trump’s proposed rare Earth elements deal with Ukraine, why have we never heard the proper words used to describe it? It’s not a “deal,” it’s not a “negotiation”: it’s extortion.

The thug holding the Oval Office in the United States is demanding the ravaged nation of Ukraine to pay us protection money. “Nice country you used to have. Be a shame if we let the Russians just take it from you.”

Not, mind you, that we should be surprised. Anyone who has any familiarity with Donald Trump’s business career knows this is precisely the thing he is good at. “Give me what I want and I won’t hurt you. Don’t give it to me, and I’ll find your opponents, and then get it from them.”

And why are President Macron of France and Prime Minister Starmer of the UK coming to Washington this week to meet with the president? Because they don’t want to be next.

This is how low we’ve stooped with the election of Donald Trump: the United States of America is now a thug running a protection racket.

Brie Stimson reports Trump told reporters “I think they want it, and they feel good about it.” Come on baby, you know you want it. You know it’ll be good for you.

Nick Paton Walsh, in this piece, at least says the United States has become “a transactional predactor.”

Upcoming conventions

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Planning out the next few weeks, I suddenly have several conventions on my schedule that weren’t there a few days ago.

Next weekend, I’ll be at LICH—the Long Island Convention of Horror, in Hauppauge, New York. I’m trying to decide if I want to commute (to save hotel costs) or see if I have a friend out that way who’s looking for a house guest for Friday and/or Saturday night.

The following weekend (March 7–9), I’ll be staying at my sister’s house while attending NorthEast ComicCon in Boxborough, Massachusetts.

At both of those, I’ll be in the dealers’ room all weekend, no programming appearances. But, as always, I’m happy to talk at the table.

And, the latest news, I’ll have a table at this year’s Ravencon, in Richmond, Virginia, April 25–27. For this one, I’ve got a hotel room reserved, but all they had left are rooms with one king bed. If anyone has a two-bed room and is looking for a roommate to cut the costs, I, too, am interested.

Beyond those speculative fiction cons, I’m also planning to be at Connecticut & Western Massachusetts Mensa’s mini-RG in Bethel, Connecticut, the weekend of March 21–23. I’ve got a roommate to split the room Friday night, but will have an extra bed Saturday night, if anyone is looking for space.

I’m also planning to attend New Hampshire Mensa’s RG April 4–6. I’ve got a hotel reservation there, but I’m not sure if the other bed is already spoken for.

Those are the pro con (professional convention) announcements for the moment.