Bulletins and News Discussion from April 14th to April 20th, 2025 - The Lamentations of a Levy-Loving Leader

Image is of Trump's initial set of reciprocal tariffs. Source is CNN and Reuters.

It's difficult to keep up with the news around the tariffs; they get instated, then dropped, then reinstated... for example, on Friday, Trump said that certain electronics like smartphones would be exempt, causing markets to rally a great deal, but now the Commerce Secretary has said that they might not be exempt? The state of play right now, if you haven't been keeping up this week, is that the US recently announced a 90-day global pause on implementing the tariffs he had planned (that is, 25% on certain Canadian and Mexican goods, and at least 10% on every other nation) but nonetheless increased tariffs on China to 145%.

Meanwhile, China has been - quite remarkably - standing their ground, increasing tariffs on the US to 125%, and putting restrictions on rare earths. Xi Jinping has been in Vietnam and has made statements against a tariff war there, saying that it would have no winners. Meanwhile, a Chinese spokesperson has essentially said that China can endure the tariff war due to the increasing demand from its domestic market in combination with its growing economic ties with other countries.

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MAJOR PORTUGUESE election campaign drama, possibly compromised judiciary???
So the public prosecutor received an anonymous complaint about possible wrongdoing in the acquisition of 2 apartments (or something like that) by the leader of the center-left socialist party, Pedro Nuno Santos (often called PNS). This comes after the leader of the center-right government, Luis Montenegro has been under public scrutiny for months because of payments made to his family's company by casino and hotel conglomerates, which the public prosecutor said they were "pre-investigating" but nothing came of it yet, and the guy is still still running for PM. Also after the former socialist party PM Antonio Costa (now president of the EU council) resigned after the public prosecutor announced they were investigating him for possible corruption, which ended up not leading anywhere.
PNS immediately came out and, unlike Montenegro who just insisted he did nothing wrong, explained everything about those properties and how he acquired them (and how he owes the bank 400k), basically, he has a rich dad and a rich wife, he used to have a really good car that his dad bought him but he sold it off after saying it "didn't match with his socialist values", honestly I doubt he actually did anything illegal and so do most people that's why this smells fishy.
The government and the socialist party are pretty much tied in the polls now but the socialists have been rising, and after striking down an absolute majority socialist government, and mostly ignoring a PM that technically gets monthly payments by private companies, the public prosecutor suddenly announces they're investigating the leader of the opposition 1 month away from elections?
The guy is also the most "left-wing" leader the socialists have had this century, during the troika he got caught on a hot mic saying portugal should just declare we wouldn't be paying our debts to german banks and then "their legs would shake", during the contraption government he was also in charge of negotiating with the left block and communist party for them to approve government budgets. That's pretty based but he's also not that left-populist guy anymore, he's to the right of, say, Bernie and Corbyn, and his idea of a developmental regime for Portugal would immediately have to face EU restrictions, which would split the socialist party (one of the most europeanist parties in europe).
In better news, there's some groundswell for Paulo Raimundo the leader of the communist party's performance in the 20 minute long televised debates between party leaders, I'm hearing this from both friends and, surprisingly, family who did not like the guy 2 years ago. Now I despise the format of these debates so I'm not watching them, basically each candidate gets in theory 10 minutes and then after each debate they bring out the fucking dumbest pundits in the office to talk for 30-60 minutes and, I shit you not, "give scores" to each leader for their "performance", not the content or politics of what they said, just their performance and how much they owned the other guy, WHICH IS CRAZY, does that happen in your country too???
Anyway while a lot of these pundits would never give a communist a good score some of them have pretty much been forced to, or at least they lower the score of whoever he as debating since they can't possible argue that Raimundo had lost the debate. Surprisingly I'm hearing that there's not a lot of ukraine talk, there's only been a couple of instances where Raimundo had to reiterate for the umpteenth time that the party doesn't support arms shipments to ukraine. Now this has a lot of comrades feeling very hopeful that the party might regain some of the vote share it lost last time, which would mean the party would increase its vote share in a national election for the first time since 2015, and possibly regain some of its strongholds. I'll remain cautiously optimistic since the anti-communism and vulgar propaganda skyrocketed after the ukraine war, but if the party manages to regain support in these conditions I'll call that a victory regardless of what comes out of the elections
- Nice write up, do you think it could be like 'car wash' in Brazil where it turned out a lot of the stuff was overblown if not false and was basically a campaign by rightist to disqualify their opponents?
  also ::: spoiler spoiler 'often called PNS' same :::
  
  No because I think they genuinely have nothing on him and he's also not really that much of a threat to the status quo or anything, and stuff is not as polarized here right now as it as in brazil so if they disqualify PNS for this it would be incredibly transparent that they're lawfaring him and the socialist party could likely get another absolute majority in the elections, hell despite the move probably being done to hurt the PS, the fact than PNS immediately publicized everything about the business they're investigating him over, while challenging the PM to do the same about his family's company, could even benefit the party in the elections.
  I think that just like they did with Costa, who resigned because he didn't believe a PM under investigation should keep governing, the public prosecutor is probably just biased and doesn't like the socialist party, despite, or maybe because, they technically ARE the regime party.
  And I mean, Costa got his name cleared in just a few months and moved up to one of the most public european posts, even the center-right praises him in that role, so he could return to national politics anytime he wants to and the public prosecutor couldn't do shit.
- after each debate they bring out the fucking dumbest pundits in the office to talk for 30-60 minutes and, I shit you not, "give scores" to each leader for their "performance", not the content or politics of what they said, just their performance and how much they owned the other guy, WHICH IS CRAZY, does that happen in your country too???
  In amerikkka this is the extent of debate analysis. Mainstream news brings in one democrat and one republican spokesperson (they are both extremely dumb). They debate exactly what you are saying. Extremely boring analysis that nobody should listen to
- basically, he has a rich dad, he used to have a really good car that his dad bought him but he sold it off after saying it "didn't match with his socialist values"
  A fancy car didn't match his socialist values so he sold it and used the money to... become a landlord by buying multiple investment properties?
  
  I think one of them is the house he lives on and the other is his family's vacation home, or something like that, they're also not apartments (unlike what I said), one of them even has a pool.
  Also the fancy car has nothing to do with the houses (I probably worded that weirdly) I just mentioned the car to give the detail that his dad is rich, these 2 houses he bought were with help from his rich wife and rich dad, and also from money he got from selling the house he lived in before.
  One of the things they're trying to get him on is that one of the houses he bought is somewhat close-ish to a location where he proposed, while Minister of Infrastructure, to build an airport on, and that could mean the house would appreciate in value but....it's a stretch to prove that
  
  Oh so it's just the "Bernie has three houses" shit being used in a different country.
  I'm still voting PCP though.
  
  Yeah and even if it's cringe that he owns 2 houses the reason he won't be great for housing isn't because he's personally compromised in the sector but because he's politically compromised by EU regulations, namely around deficit spending and state intervention into the housing sector, which the EU hates. He's basically just repeated the governments "just build more" mantra while the building isn't really happening.
  I'm still voting PCP though.
  Awesome, remember it'll show up on the ballot as "CDU-Coligação democratica unitaria", then the logos of the 2 parties which are a hammer and sickle and a sunflower.

1018 comments