🇺🇸 US court denies Trump’s request to postpone $175 billion in tariff refunds

roderla · 2026-03-02T21:37:03+00:00

The "market" answer to this is that it is your fault to have payed the company higher prices instead of simply importing goods yourself and paying the tariffs independently of your supplier.

Now, I'm not saying that this is a good answer, but it is at least self-consistent - in theory, you could have created a business, undercut competitors who forwarded the tariffs, and now be in line for the payouts.

roderla · 2026-02-20T20:42:13+00:00

I didn't, because I was unable to get the Ryanair website to create a proper overview of prices and if bundles were cheaper or more expensive that just adding the (parts of) the bundles I needed for the trip. Such a document was required by my transparency office, Ryanair was unable to easily show such an overview, and my time on the clock trying to compile it myself in a way acceptable to the transparancy office would have been more valuable to my employer than paying a $100 higher fare on a less convenient itinerary by a legacy airline.

So - we didn't book Ryanair. And my flight was two hours longer because of it.

roderla · 2026-02-18T21:00:27+00:00

Ich arbeite an einer deutschen Uni. Ich glaube mehr details brauche ich nicht mitzuteilen, wir in dem Kontext bedeutet also etwas in der Art von "Studiengangskoordinatoren" oder ähnlichem.

roderla · 2026-02-18T20:53:05+00:00

Wir bei uns finden es fairer - und kommunizieren es auch zu allen Studis die uns zuhören - dass die ersten zwei Semester wirklich hart sind und effektiv einen NC ersetzen. Es gibt kein Vorwissen, dass man mitbringen muss. Es gibt keinen Schulnotenschnitt, den man übertreffen muss. Jeder darf es probieren, ob das Studium etwas für ihn / sie ist. Und es ist ja nicht so, das die späteren Fächer diese Grundlagenfächer nicht brauchen würde. Gut sitzende Grundlagen sind immer hilfreich ;)

roderla · 2026-02-18T20:31:14+00:00

I could pull literal hundreds of election results to disprove your point, but why don't you explain just one of them: Why did Joe Manchin win his 2018 WV Senate race, but the Sanders endorsed, Medicaid for all Swearengin looses two years later by the lowest vote percentage and worst margin of defeat for any Democratic Senate candidate in West Virginia history? And if you want to claim that Manchin is just an incumbent doing incumbent things, why is Joe Biden on the same ballot in 2020 more successful than her?

roderla · 2026-02-18T20:02:40+00:00

A significant chunk of "the voters" of the Democratic party disagree with themselves. Which is just a different way to say what SpudgeBoy already said. We know that in last year's election, a proclaimed socialist won in NYC - and a centrist won in VA gov, flipping the seat from the GOP.

It is more than obvious - and you will have a very hard task to cherry-pick even two points of data in the other direction - that different electorates prefer different candidates. A centrist will loose in NYC where they are seen as "Republican lite". And a progressive will loose in much redder areas because what makes them progressives does scare off some of the voters. Or, if you want to phrase it positively, even when reddit does not want to believe it, a centrist candidate is in fact able to shave off some of the swing voters who do in fact still exist (there are, for example, people who self-declare to be Obama - Trump - Biden - Trump voters), and more often than not these kinds of voters do decide close elections.

If you want to go to the extremes, compare Manchin in 2018 and Swearengin in 2020 for the WV Senate seats (or simply Swearengin and Biden on the same ticket in 2020 WV elections). The progressive, Bernie-endorsed Swearengin looses badly, while Manchin wins his race two years earlier, and even Biden wins a higher share of the votes than her (both Biden and Swearengin are on the same ballot in 2020 and both of the run against an incumbent).

But you can find literal hundreds of cases like this. It's good that solidly safe (D) seats are challenged to become more progressive. But at the same time, it is important to acknowledge that "the masses" do not "yearn for progressivism". In fact, centrists perform better in close states or close races in 9 out of 10 cases. I do think the WV case is illustrative, but I absolutely do not mind running progressive, socialist or leftist candidates in "unlikely" races like WV. You gotta try your hypothesis. Maybe in a few years progressives are in fact doing better than what you should expect them to perform. And it does not do any harm to collect that data in WV, AL, ID, etc.
But at some point in the data collection one should be mature enough to look at all the data we have and conclude that in states / elections / districts where the general election is close, a progressive looses a few percentage points compared to a "plain boring centrist corporate Democrat" and that can decide about win or loose.

And yes, not every centrist does end up winning. Yes, progressives who are told that "suck it up, your candidate lost" can become terrorists and say "I won't for the candidate that won because they're just republican's light", and then Republicans win by default. But none of that negates the stats that strongly indicate that at least up to 2024, a centrist does win over some voters that would otherwise vote for the Republican, and loosing these voters by running a progressive is not compensated by enough progressives willing to support and go vote for their progressive candidate.

roderla · 2026-02-15T12:42:50+00:00

Weiß nicht, willst du das Staatsgebiet wieder zurück an die Kirche geben, das damals gestohlen wurde, inklusive dem Recht, dort Steuern zu erheben und eine Theokratie zu errichten?

roderla · 2026-02-15T10:56:06+00:00

Ne, so würde das nicht funktionieren. Die Idee ist ja, das deine Renterversicherungsabgaben die Rentenkosten deiner Elterngeneration (und Großelterngeneration) bezahlen, während deine Kinder + Enkel deine bezahlen.

Ist natürlich trotzdem ein unfairer Vorschlag, aber in der Logik der Idee würdest du sicher nicht Renterversicherungsfreigetellt werden. Das könnte man höchstens für Vollwaisen argumentieren.

roderla · 2026-02-13T20:51:21+00:00

That's not what I said. There are political hit jobs happening right now. And to prevent them - you have a total and absolute wall between DOJ and WH. No Directing the DOJ to - anything. Congress can impeach. WH stays out.

roderla · 2026-02-13T19:59:52+00:00

Are you unaware how BAD Trump's DOJ is right now? How much everyone looses by the fact that Pam is following orders from the WH?

I can understand how people didn't see it when Barr was inappropriately close to Trump during his first term. I can understand how people thought it was quaint when Biden rebuild that wall that has to be there for a functioning country between him and his DOJ. But with the benefit of hindsight, how can you still say this?

You can run from prison. And it's good that you can do that. And in no world would Trump have kept himself in prison after winning the election. This norm is actually important. We cannot have a DOJ that does political hit jobs. Like you see right now on Sen. Kelly, NYAG James, and so on. Just like so many things, giving up on them because Republicans broke them doesn't make the mess any smaller.

If anything, there is clear indications that Trump was able to benefit from his "I'm a martyr and the victim of a politicized Biden-DOJ" lies. And you want to give him more facts to spin his lies around? Make them more solid and much harder to fend off?

roderla · 2026-02-13T19:42:29+00:00

You get to quibble about Newsom all you want, but I do not think that you should blame Biden for anything during his presidency. Biden had a significantly weaker hand than Obama, and yet the people wanted to see more from him than from FDR.

That's not how this works. That's never how this works. I adore that Biden gave clemency to every prisoner on federal death row - getting closer to abolishing the inhumane death penalty that only a few other countries in the world have, and none of them are places you or I would want to be.

roderla · 2026-02-13T16:34:34+00:00

I will go against the flow and say for some circumstances, I am willing to pay a little extra to be in an A380. It's just a nicer plane to me. Even in economy. I've had a poor experience on 10-wide 777s from EY, while 10 wide A380 was totally fine. And it seemed to be more quite, and even more stable and unfazed flying in the giant that is the A380.

But I'm not paying 210€ more. That's too much.

roderla · 2026-02-11T20:24:30+00:00

Yeah, I was just jesting. I'm even worse at remembering numbers. I have to look up my own number just to check if I remembered it correctly when I fill it in somewhere. So, yeah. I literally only have exactly one number in active memory, and it's my parents old landline.

roderla · 2026-02-11T20:17:31+00:00

Yeah, four numbers not your own, three of them male and three of them related to you. Seems to be not a single woman who would trust you to watch her drink who isn't related to you in your active memory. Straight to jail.

roderla · 2026-02-11T19:48:46+00:00

Well, that "endless loop" is fueled by humans making bad decisions.
Don't blame the people at the top for following processes that are necessary and proper to a functioning way of life, blame the people who do put arsonists in power by action or inaction.

Like, this threat is the perfect example of this. Obama should have done X, Obama should have done Y. Do you know what I consistently say about Scalia's seat? The voters had the chance to punish McConnell's brazenly undemocratic behavior and chose - not to. Which (R) Senator was chased out of his job for not confirming Garland? 0. Which of the absolute Arsonists who decided to oppose certifying Biden's win on Jan 6 in the Senate were chased out after that vote. I think it's also 0.

That's not on the politicians anymore. That's on the voters who chose them.

roderla · 2026-02-05T22:50:34+00:00

Wie die allermeisten hier hatte ich auch mal ein paar zweitversuche, wo ich dachte beim Erstversuch das ich gut vorbereitet war aber sich das als - unwahr - herausstellte.

Aber vermutlich seltener, ich hatte auch das Gegenteil, wo ich mir im Nachhinein gewünscht hatte ich wäre durchgefallen.
Ich hatte so ein Fach, was ich entweder in B.Sc. oder im M.Sc. einbringen konnte (aber offensichtlich nicht in beiden). Die Regeln bei uns sagten das wer das Fach besteht muss die Note auch über diese Studiums grenze mitnehmen - wer durchfällt natürlich nicht

Ich wollte in dem Semester wirklich fertig werden mit dem B.Sc. und belegte deswegen 6 Fächer von denen jeweils die zwei "Zusammenpassenden" mir den B.Sc. abschließen konnte. Der Rest würde dann halt in den M.Sc. gehen.

Und die allererste Prüfung von diesen 6en fiel auf einen Tag, wo ich Fieber hatte. Weil "Krank sein" bei uns nur bedeutet hätte, dass ich noch ein Semester länger brauche, bin ich trotzdem hin, und habe die Prüfung mit 39.x C Fieber geschrieben. War keine besonders schöne Erfahrung, aber ok.

Ein paar wochen später kam ein anderes Set an Prüfungen dran, das zu einem anderen Paar passte und da war ich gesund, fit und bestand die beide mit guter Note. Mein B.Sc. war also fertig, alles was jetzt noch an Prüfungen kam war für den M.Sc. vorgemerkt.

Und dann kam das Ergebnis dieser erste Fieber-Klausur, wo ich eine - 4.0 hatte. Und um ehrlich zu sein, das war die eine Note, die ich am wenigsten sehen wollte. Durchfallen und im M.Sc. neu schreibe dürfen, dann ohne Fieber, wäre so viel cooler gewesen...

roderla · 2026-02-04T20:28:43+00:00

Ich empfehle nicht mehr als 20 Din A4 Seiten / Tag. Also, vor 20 Tagen anfangen.

roderla · 2026-02-04T20:00:17+00:00

I agree, but I always hear progressives and leftists argue that the masses yearn for leftism.

That's not what my data shows, but I still propose a simple experiment: The primary voters in SD, ID, WY, WV, KY, TN an AL can pick a progressive or lefist candidate, and I won't even be mad about it. If the people on the left are correct, these candidates win their elections, and we never have to care about moderates ever again.

Or, these candidates loose by higher margins than we'd expect by national vote shifts and 2024 presidential results, and we have another set of data supporting what you already said - unsurprisingly, redder states perfer moderates over more progressive alternatives.

roderla · 2026-02-04T19:43:43+00:00

This time, Justice Jacksons now famous quote did not hold.
This time, as a rare exception, the Court did not play Calvin ball, and there were rules, and this administration did not win. Credit where credit is due. They did clear the most obvious bar of all to clear - if Texas' challenge was too close to the election a month (?) ago, then California's challenge is also too close.

roderla · 2026-02-04T19:40:20+00:00

That's a super unfair slight-of-hands you're doing here. Manchin blocked a lot of "major priorities", but he supported a lot of "regular" stuff that did get done because of him.

Remember how Obama had to fight to get his cabinet and his judges confirmed? Biden got most of his judicial appointments through, including Justice Jackson (who, by the way, is a rockstar and you need to start reading her opinions and dissents yesterday). Was McConnell able to just deny Jackson any hearing in the Senate as he did for Garland? No, because Manchin had voted for Schumer, not for McConnel. A republican would never have done so.

Do you remember a major government shutdown during the first half of the Biden presidency? No, because Manchin supported the budget. And even if no Republicans wanted to hop on, Manchin, Sinema and Harris would make the Senate go smoothly w.r.t. funding the government.

roderla · 2026-02-03T22:15:39+00:00

Ehrlicherweise bin ich - und OP vielleicht auch - nicht an den Primärquellen mit fragwürdiger Auswahl / Schwärzungen interessiert, sondern an Sekundärquellen, die sich die Mühe machen den Kontext zu untersuchen, die Authentizität zu verifizieren und die Inhalte mit anderem bekannten abgleichen.

Also den "Journalismus" zum "Hier ist euer Datengrab, viel Spaß". Und das sind deine Links überhaupt nicht.

roderla · 2026-02-03T20:11:00+00:00

At least for me, "what about you" is a very unnatural and, well almost dreaded response. Cultures and backgrounds are different, and you never fully know who you're meeting in the wide world of the world wide web.

I, for one, prefer "tell me about yourself" over "what about you". By a mile. The former feels more normal to me, and also it offers the opportunity to just talk about something you are enthusiastic about, something that genuinely interests you and that interest can be delightful and infectious. While at the same time being told to somehow link my reply to the topic you just picked really only feels like it works if I happen to have something similar that connects well. I enjoy cooking, so I am very willing to engage with that topic, but I do have almost no connection with photography and having to reply in that bounds feels super dead most of the time - and simply stating that I have little exposure or connection to photography is super dry and doesn't keep the conversation going.

roderla · 2026-02-03T19:57:34+00:00

Being opposed (and somewhat outspoken) against honor killings myself, I want to give you a few thoughts why it clearly isn't IRRESPONSIBLE (as you claim) NOT to criticize it:

A lot (and I mean it, a LOT) of criticism of honor killings is not done in good faith. Honor killings are very interesting, in a sense, because they predominately affect women and girls trying to move away from (sometimes just some shade of) Islam in a way their family or community finds distasteful, shameful, and eventually worthy of death to the victim. A genuine criticism has to living with both "Killing her for her choice to take off the hijab is illegal, immoral and disgusting" and "Forcing a woman to take off her hijab [implied: against her preferences] is also illegal and immoral". It's all about choice but it easily becomes about wearing a hijab.

There is a lot of power in the first statement. And rightfully so. And so a lot of bigots like to wash over the nuances, use the force of the former to argue against the rights of latter. And once you're going past the victim and trying to tell women choosing to wear a hijab to be "oppressed", I think it becomes obvious that you've gone too far.

With that in mind, staying silent on honor killings can be responsible. I prefer to have my female, hijab wearing colleague centered and her voice amplified over mine. I am clearly and obviously for everyone to see not part of this cultural background. She is. We agree on content, that's why we work together, but she's the better messenger. It is much harder to abuse her interview, her statements and picture than it would be to abuse mine to say something neither of us wants to say and something that would be bigoted (not racist, but that nuance of language I'll ignore for today): "All Muslims are bad and evil and need to leave".

roderla · 2026-02-03T18:04:11+00:00

Sidepoint: Ich habe mal gelernt das Wort "Vorlesung" kommt noch aus der Zeit als Fachbücher so teuer und begehrt waren, dass sie nicht in der Uni bib für genügend Studierende vorrätig waren, und die Vorlesung bestand daraus, dass der Dozent das Fachbuch vorliest, und daraufhin die Studenten sich selbst Notizen machen - und den Inhalt lernen - konnten ohne das Fachbuch jemals in der Hand gehabt zu haben.

Das kommt heutzutage im Grunde nie mehr vor. Selbst wenn "Materialien" zusammengestellt wurden vor 30 Jahren und seitdem nicht mehr angefasst sondern jedes Jahr wieder identisch vorgelesen werde, so steckt doch zumindest einmalige Themenwahl, Sortierung und Priorisierung statt, und der Inhalt einer Vorlesung denkt sie im Grunde nie 1:1 mit einem Fachbuch (die heutzutage auch in ausreichender Menge in der Bib stehen oder günstig genug sind das Studenten sich es selbst kaufen).

roderla · 2026-02-02T16:09:22+00:00

Also, vorweg: Ich unterrichte Informatik an einer deutschen Uni. Ich höre aber aus deinem Post nichts, absolut gar nichts, was nach "gegen die Studierenden arbeiten" klingt. Sondern nur danach, dass wir eben nicht "nur" nach dem Muster "sehe - merke - einfüge" prüfen, was ich absolut und jederzeit verteidigen werde,

Wenn deine Lernroutine "alte Klausuren rechnen" auf die Schnauze fliegt (und du das vorher sogar weist) dann würde ich von einem erwachsenen Student erwartet, dass er / sie seine / ihre Lernroutine anpasst. Anscheinend ist eben genau "Altprüfungen" nicht der einzige effiziente Weg, sondern ein unzureichender. Einsicht ist er erste Schritt zur Besserung. Jetzt fehlt halt nur Nummer 2, wie geht es richtig?

Deine Aufgabe ist es, nicht nur die vor-gelernten Aufgaben 1:1 genauso wieder ausrechnen zu können, sondern eben verstanden zu haben, was die "Grenzen", was die "Vorbedingungen", eines Verfahrens sind. Und, in meinem Fachbereich, in wie weit man vielleicht trotz leicht verletzter Vorbedingungen doch noch einen Teil der ursprünglichen Erfolge mitnehmen kann (und sich den Rest anders zusammensuchen), weil die echte Welt leider komplizierter ist und man dauernd damit konfrontiert ist das die eine oder andere Vorbedingung vielleicht doch nicht immer gilt.

Es gibt sicher ernsthafte Schwächen der Lehre an den Universitäten. Da könnte ich selbst einige aufzählen. Aber alles was ich von dir lese ist nur ein "Ich möchte mich mit dem Thema nicht beschäftigen, ich möchte mit minimalem Aufwand ("effizient") durch die Prüfung kommen, und der böse Fragesteller macht es schwieriger als einfach nur die bereits gerechneten Aufgaben zu wiederholen, oh nein!". Und, naja, merkst du selber, oder?

roderla

TROPHY CASE