The tariffs have endangered the many manufacturing jobs provided by American companies that use aluminum inputs, including recyclers. Novelis alone is one of the world’s largest producers of aluminum for cans of beer and soft drinks, parts for airplanes, housing construction components and car production. The company is building a massive plant in Bay Minette, Ala. At $4.1 billion, it’s one of the largest manufacturing investments in Alabama’s history and will hire thousands of workers across construction and up to 1,000 once the plant opens.
But now Novelis is in danger of ceasing construction if there is no relief from the more than $40 million in monthly tariff-related costs it suffers.
The damage to existing U.S. manufacturing reaches up the supply chain. The aluminum tariff is hurting, among others, automakers, John Deere, Molson Coors, and Caterpillar.
The U.S. manufacturers hit by Mr. Trump’s tariffs are frustrated. They provide good jobs to Americans yet are getting hammered. Many also compete directly with China—which will be the big winner of the aluminum tariffs. Mr. Trump promised that “there are no tariffs if you manufacture or build your product in the United States.” That has proved utterly untrue.
Since President Donald Trump took office, Congress has abdicated its constitutional authority—and responsibility—to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises” to the executive branch. On Tuesday, the House of Representatives voted yet again to prevent itself from reclaiming these powers from the president.
The vote was on a procedural measure that passed out of the Rules Committee on Monday, which included a provision to “extend until March 31 a block on efforts…to end the national emergencies underlying Trump’s sweeping tariffs,” reports Politico. The measure passed in a partisan 213–211 vote, with only Reps. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.), Kevin Kiley (R–Calif.), and Victoria Spartz (R–Ind.) breaking party ranks.
Yesterday, Trump threatened to go after ABC News for “hate speech” after Jonathan Karl asked a question about Attorney General Pam Bondi’s statement that she would go after hate speech.
Now you might say that Trump is not Congress and so he’s not bound by the First Amendment. But he is bound by the limits on his powers and among his powers is not the power to censor.
As most readers of this Substack probably know, I’m a “glass half full” kind of person. I’ve found it very heartening to see the denunciations, on many conservative sites, of Pam Bondi’s attack on free speech. My favorite was the Babylon Bee’s story titled, “Pam Bondi Honors Charlie Kirk’s Legacy by Doing Exact Opposite of Charlie Kirk.”
Also writing wisely about the murder of Charlie Kirk and reactions to it is Williamson Evers.
Instead, Chairman Jerome Powell and colleagues are shifting their main policy focus to the slowing labor market. Mr. Powell in his press conference described this week’s decision as a “risk-management cut” and emphasized evidence of softness in job creation.
But he struggled to articulate how monetary policy might make a difference. Neither of the negatives he mentioned—tariffs and Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown—can be offset by lower interest rates. Otherwise, “it’s not a bad economy,” he allowed. Booming stock valuations and investor enthusiasm for low-quality debt, among other symptoms, suggest financial conditions aren’t especially tight as it is.
Undeterred, the Fed is shifting into dovish mode, and with surprising consensus. Stephen Miran, a new member of the Fed board and once and future White House economic adviser, dissented in favor of a half-percentage-point rate cut and a fed funds rate below 3% by the end of this year. You can tell he’s Donald Trump’s wholly owned subsidiary.
At another level, however, it should be asked: Why has political discourse reached such an extreme and heated state that violence has become a more acceptable tool for some to “solve” differences over ideas? I would suggest that part of the reason is due to the fact that politics and government increasingly intrude into, influence, and determine so much more of people’s lives. The very nature of the modern democratic political process is that whichever majority of voters are triumphant in elections determines the course of political and social life in greater and greater detail for all in society, including all those who voted against the winning candidates.
It’s impossible to know with certainty how any federal judicial nominee will rule in decades hence, and if the argument on the right were simply that she lacks a paper trail, that would be one thing. But the critics undermine their own case by going after her husband’s political views and making other unserious complaints.
Ms. Taibleson once donated to Sen. Joe Manchin via ActBlue? OK, well, campaign-finance records say it was a whole $50 in 2022, around the time Mr. Manchin was sitting on the Republican side during Mr. Biden’s State of the Union. The critics claim Ms. Taibleson’s nomination has the support of Wisconsin’s liberal Sen. Tammy Baldwin. In fact Ms. Baldwin’s office tells us she hasn’t returned her “blue slip” or rendered any judgment.
With conservative friends like these, who needs liberal enemies?
Mr. Mangione is disconcertingly popular among young Americans. In a poll in January—a month after the killing—students were asked with whom they sympathize more. Forty-five percent chose Mr. Mangione, 17% Thompson and 37% neither. Forty-eight percent said they view the killing as totally or somewhat justified. A GiveSendGo account has raised more than $1.27 million for Mr. Mangione’s legal defense.
The scene at the courthouse is a festival of leftist causes, old and new. An elderly woman hawks copies of Workers Vanguard, a newspaper of the Trotskyist Spartacus League. A young man rides a skateboard decorated with a hammer and sickle. Another wears a cowboy hat and a “Communists of America” T-shirt. Digital billboard trucks featuring pro-Mangione messages drive in circles around the courthouse. A woman wearing an “I [heart] Italians” T-shirt with Mr. Mangione’s face in the middle, tells journalists that she has “married” a Luigi Mangione artificial-intelligence chatbot and describes her ersatz nuptials as the “future of romance.”
