SINCERETALK

President Donald Trump’s new tariffs against Canada are “madness” and will hurt his supporters according to an editorial by a prominent right-leaning newspaper. “The White House on Monday exhumed Section 338 of the 1930 Tariff Act to impose 50 [percent] tariffs on hundreds of Canadian goods, including hockey sticks, honey, beer, down feathers, fishing rods and golf clubs,” The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board wrote on Tuesday . “The tariffs are set to take effect in 30 days, which means he’s using tariffs as leverage to win concessions from Canada.” They added, “He may also enjoy showing off his new tariff bazooka. Section 338 lets the President impose tariffs up to 50 [percent] on countries that discriminate against “commerce of the United States, directly or indirectly” in relation to foreign countries. No previous President has used this power, which hails from the disastrous Smoot-Hawley Act.” The Editorial Board went on to describe how Trump’s policies have increased prices an...

President Donald Trump likes to pick winners, not losers. And when he picks a ‘loser’ in a primary or general election he tends to get irritated. And nobody wants to be Trump’s advisor when he’s irritated, said Intelligencer political columnist Ed Kilgore . That’s why advisors may be getting anxious about Trump’s endorsement in South Carolina’s Republican primary. “One of the crosses Donald Trump has had to bear recently is a less-than-perfect record in endorsing Republican primary candidates,” said Kilgore on Tuesday. “His choices in high-profile gubernatorial nominating contests in Iowa and Georgia both lost to rivals who claimed to adore the 47th president despite their manifest willingness to rebel against his wishes. Trump’s fury at his advisers for steering him wrong peaked in South Carolina, where his gubernatorial endorsee, Pamela Evette, was struggling in a GOP runoff against yet another more-MAGA-than-thou rival, Alan Wilson, leading Trump in a panic to endorse Wilson as we...

Trump’s war with Iran has resumed (it never really stopped). The U.S. is sending more warplanes to the Middle East. Two American service members were killed in an Iranian missile attack on Jordan, and a third is missing. The Strait of Hormuz is again closed. Meanwhile, Mojtaba Khamenei issued his first statement following his father’s funeral, saying “revenge is the will of our nation” and that Iran would act against “criminals whose names are known.” In response, Trump threatened to “completely decimate and destroy” Iran if assassination threats against him were acted upon. How long can Iran continue the war? Its economy appears reasonably stable ; it has exported oil sufficient to meet its needs. Its population has become used to sanctions and economic pain, and has no voice, in any event. As shown by its attack on Jordan, as well as those on Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Syria, and Qatar, Iran has ample missile stocks and has also become more adept at evading U.S. air defense systems. H...

President Donald Trump’s economy is so bad, it is reminiscent of the economy under the doomed Republican presidency of Herbert Hoover — at least, according to one of Trump’s former advisers . “We have a few major problems going on in America today,” Anthony Scaramucci, who briefly worked as Trump’s communications director during his first term, posted on X on Monday . He continued that there is an “affordability crisis — prices up across the board,” that Trump broke his promise to end “forever wars” by immersing America “in a quagmire in Iran” and that he continues to cover up his involvement with the late child sex trafficker and his longtime friend, pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. “That’s why his approval rating is at 33 [percent],” Scaramucci added. “As low as Herbert Hoover at the depths of the Great Depression.” This is not the first time Scaramucci has slammed Trump’s performance on the economy and his seeming focus on only helping the rich . In May, Scaramucci argued that “if Barac...

In June President Donald Trump endorsed Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), a far right Republican and backer of Trump’s debunked Big Lie about the 2020 election, to oppose incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA). Now, according to one political reporter, Trump’s pick is putting the key swing state of Georgia in peril for the GOP. “Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Collins enters the general election facing a challenge that goes beyond winning over swing voters: convincing Republicans in Georgia and Washington that he can defeat Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff,” wrote the Atlanta Journal Constitution's Greg Bluestein on Monday . “The GOP nominee trails in early polls, faces a massive fundraising disadvantage and carries the sort of political baggage that his rivals long warned could doom him in November against a rising Democratic star.” Bluestein elaborated that Collins must simultaneously broaden his appeal beyond the base of hardcore Trump supporters and convince donors that giving to his campaign is ...

Back in the early 20th Century, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) separated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS)—the Mormon Church — to protest its 1904 manifesto renouncing polygamy. The FLDS is a marginal group that the vast majority of Mormons, from former Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) to R&B star Gladys Knight, AKA The Empress of Soul, have zero connection to. But according to the Washington Post, the FLDS could endanger Rep. Andy Biggs' (R-Arizona) gubernatorial campaign in the Grand Canyon State. Biggs is seeking the GOP nomination in Arizona's 2026 gubernatorial race. If he wins the nomination on Tuesday, he will take on Democratic incumbent Gov. Katie Hobbs in the general election. According to Washington Post reporter Hannah Knowles, however, a 2013 controversy involving the FLDS could come back to haunt the far-right Biggs. "Momentum was growing in 2013 to crack down on a polygamist religious group accu...