Jeffrey Altman

Founder of @AuriStor and @SecureEndpoints; former @theopenssf board member; long time open source contributor

[Jeffrey Altman @jaltman]

@StevenACohen2 with Knicks in the finals. Can you host a watch party at Citi Field tonight? And start Wed's game at 6:30pm and follow it by a Knicks watch party for those in attendance?

[Ben Yoel @Ben_Yoel]

Nothing like a @HowieRose game-tying HR call in the bottom of the 9th with 2 outs in the Subway Series.

[Athlete Logos Apparel @athletelogos]

"The artist's job is to be a witness to his time in history."

What a time to be alive. #NYMNeonProject

[Scott MacFarlane @MacFarlaneNews]

This clip .........

[Athlete Logos Apparel @athletelogos]

Haven't done as many neons as I would have liked this year but this one was a must. Hopefully the vibes are starting to turn. #NYMNeonProject

[Jeffrey Altman @jaltman]

@StevenACohen2 I'm curious. Is that 58% of tickets that went unused (no check-in at Citi Field) or 58% of transactions for which not a single ticket was used?

[Jon Heyman @JonHeyman]

https://t.co/SZok78xzLr The Nimmo trade: Painful but logical, and ultimately a necessary start to unavoidable makeover

[Scott MacFarlane @MacFarlaneNews]

THE DAY AHEAD: States maneuver to preserve history of Capitol siege .. and teach school children about Jan 6 attack

[Junior @MetsJr69]

$25 Donation to help sick kids gets you a limited edition pin! Link in bio!

[Jeffrey Altman @jaltman]

@MetsJr69 Great pin. Donation sent.

[Maine @TheMaineWonk]

🚨 TRUMP POLICIES LEADING TO COLLAPSE OF MAINE LOBSTER INDUSTRY?

Under Donald Trump’s trade and tariff policies, the Maine Lobster industry is collapsing while Canada is booming by overtaking the Europe and Asia markets Maine can no longer compete in.

[MeidasTouch @MeidasTouch]

Here’s the original clip of Ronald Reagan from April 25, 1987, where he delivered a complete and total rebuke against tariffs. Trump is calling Reagan’s words in this video “FAKE” and “fraudulent.” They’re 100% real. And the original clip is actually far worse for Trump, as much is left out of the ad. Watch this clip and read the full transcript:

Throughout the world, there's a growing realization that the way to prosperity for all nations is rejecting protectionist legislation and promoting fair and free competition. Now, there are sound historical reasons for this. For those of us who lived through the Great Depression, the memory of the suffering it caused is deep and searing. And today, many economic analysts and historians argue that high tariff legislation passed back in that period, called the Smoot-Hawley tariff, greatly deepened the depression and prevented economic recovery.

You see, at first when someone says, let's impose tariffs on foreign imports, it looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes for a short while, it works, but only for a short time. What eventually occurs is, first, homegrown industries start relying on government protection in the form of high tariffs. They stop competing and stop making the innovative management and technological changes they need to succeed in world markets.

And then, while all this is going on, something even worse occurs. High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. The result is more and more tariffs, higher and higher trade barriers, and less and less competition. So soon, because of the prices made artificially high by tariffs that subsidize inefficiency and poor management, people stop buying.

Then the worst happens. Markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industry shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs. The memory of all this occurring back in the 30s made me determined when I came to Washington to spare the American people the protectionist legislation that destroys prosperity. Now, it hasn't always been easy. There are those in the Congress, just as there were back in the 30s, who want to go for the quick political advantage, who risk America's prosperity for the sake of a short-term appeal to some special interest group, who forget that more than 5 million American jobs are directly tied to the foreign export business, and additional millions are tied to imports.

Well, I've never forgotten those jobs. And on trade issues, by and large, we've done well.

[Melanie D'Arrigo @DarrigoMelanie]

The No Kings protests aren’t for Trump to see.

They’re for the marginalized so they know they aren’t alone.

…for unaffected people so they know this isn’t normal.

…for Republicans so they know their blind obedience to fascism won’t be tolerated.

[Brian Krassenstein @krassenstein]

BREAKING: Doug Krugman served for 24 years in the United States Marine Corps. He resigned because of Trump and then wrote this:

On Sept. 30, at an unprecedented gathering of senior military leadership, President Donald Trump said, “If you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room — of course, there goes your rank, there goes your future.” I wasn’t invited to be in the room that day, and I had decided months earlier that I had to leave. By coincidence, Sept. 30 was my last day as a colonel in the United States Marine Corps. I gave up my career out of concern for our country’s future.

United States military officers take an oath to defend the Constitution without mental reservation or purpose of evasion. I swore or repeated that oath under five presidents, starting with former president Bill Clinton. I risked my life for it, serving as an infantry officer in two wars. I watched Marines die for it.

No commander in chief is perfect. President Clinton’s moral failures are well known. President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq might be one of the worst errors in U.S. history. All recent presidents share responsibility for our failure in Afghanistan. I continued to serve despite all that because I believed the Constitution brought the country more success than failure, and I believed our presidents took their oaths to it seriously.
With President Trump, I no longer believe that. During his first term, his actions became increasingly difficult for me to justify, culminating with the Jan. 6 attack on Congress as it tried to execute its duties. I hoped he had learned from those errors, but it only took a few days of his second term for me to realize he had not. I could not swear without reservation to follow a commander in chief who seemed so willing to disregard the Constitution.

My departure was not about policy disagreements, which exist in every administration. President Trump won in 2024 and has the right to implement his policies within the law.

My first reservations were about promises and actions that I thought were morally wrong even if they were possibly legal. The Constitution gives the president the power to pardon, but pardoning roughly 1,600 of those who tried to violently overthrow the results of an election didn’t help defend the Constitution. Likewise, I didn’t see it as moral to deny refuge to Afghans who risked their lives to support us, which he did on Jan. 22. Ignoring reality to take advantage of vague laws to assume emergency powers is also immoral. For those who believe in honoring their word, breaking promises our country has made — including some trade agreements President Trump made himself — is not moral. These are not the kinds of actions that I’m willing to risk my life to defend.

Worse than immorality, however, has been President Trump’s willingness to disregard the law and Constitution to achieve his goals. When asked in May about the Fifth Amendment requirements for due process and if he needed to uphold the Constitution as president, the first words out of his mouth were “I don’t know.”

This month, National Guard officers received orders from the defense secretary that their governors opposed. A federal judge intervened, citing the lack of apparent emergency and the 10th Amendment. Those commanders and units were stuck between competing orders with no clear answer. When the president’s orders push or cross legal limits and put commanders in these situations, cohesion within our military is at risk.
President Trump’s description of Portland as a “war zone” is as fantastical as his belief that the June protests in a few blocks of Los Angeles would somehow “obliterate” the massive city of nearly 4 million. In both cases, his words had little connection to reality. Every dubious basis he gives for an order creates more room for doubt, more room for reservations and more threats to our unity.

The president said to military leadership on Sept. 30 of fighting domestic enemies: “And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That’s a war too. It’s a war from within.” It wasn’t clear if he was referring to actual crime or to political criticism of him. In either case, military force is not the answer.

Some of his voters likely dismiss President Trump’s seeming disregard for the Constitution — such as him saying that criticizing the president should be illegal, despite the First Amendment — as him exaggerating. Others apparently don’t care, believing that achieving their ends justifies any means. This president acts as though one election makes 236 years of constitutional order irrelevant. Instead of trying to work within the Constitution, or to amend it, President Trump is testing how far he can ignore it. If voters and legislators cannot close the gaps in our laws to clarify the limits to presidential power, those who serve our government will continue to struggle. The next president — of either party — may continue us down this path toward collapse.

I do not claim to speak for any other person or institution. I respect those who still serve, many of whom have service contracts and can’t simply retire like I did. But if they have doubts about their orders, they are not alone. They should be confident in questioning possibly immoral or illegal orders, remembering they are responsible for their own actions, and knowing others are asking the same questions.

I voluntarily gave up my rank as the president suggested, but the future of our country is more important than any individual’s career, wealth or power. I have no regrets about my decision. I have given up the service I loved for the freedom to do the right thing, the freedom to speak my mind and the freedom to speak in defense of our country.

[Sheryl Gay Stolberg @SherylNYT]

BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Dozens of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:

[Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @ReichlinMelnick]

A South Korean electrician thrown into an ICE detention center says "I will never visit the United States again." He was helping build a factory that is (was?) going to employ thousands of Americans.

Tell me, did that raid make America great again?

[nychealthy @nycHealthy]

Our statement in response to the FDA's updated COVID-19 vaccination guidance ⬇️

[WCS Newsroom @WCSNewsroom]

Spend an Hour in the Dark With Bats, Cats and Naked Mole Rats https://t.co/pb52jeIGHd via @NYTimes

[Balaji @balajis]

Ironically, one symptom of deindustrialization is that many commenters have never actually managed a physical business.

So. Suppose your US company imports $1M of high quality parts, and adds in its own components to produce finished goods sold for $1.2M per batch. Your gross profit is $200k per batch.

But wait! Suddenly a new 30% tariff is imposed on that $1M of parts. You now have to fork over $300k to customs before you sell anything. That’s cash you probably don’t have. Oh, and even if you do sell everything, you’re now losing $100k per batch.

With a sinking feeling, you realize your profitable business which you somehow managed to keep in America all these years has suddenly become unprofitable.

You post online about how bad this is but get shouted down by an angry mob, convinced that capitalists like you should die. You can’t tell nowadays if they’re on left or right.

Moreover, you don’t have the time, money, skills, or tools in house to build that $1M of parts yourself. You are being asked to do the equivalent of growing a maple tree when all you needed was a little maple syrup. So now you are faced with several tough choices.

(1) First, you may need to go into debt or fire people to quickly come up with the $300k in cash to pay for these surprise tariffs at customs. Even if the tariff might go away, it might not, so you have to get the cash somehow or risk having your shipment impounded.

(2) Next, you might need to reduce quality to stop losing $100k on each batch. You could order the lower quality $750k parts, grimace and pay 30% tariff at customs, and hope you can build and sell for the same price of $1.2M per batch despite the lower quality.

(3) Alternatively, you could keep the quality parts at $1M and instead raise prices to $1.5M per batch to get back your original margins of $200k per batch, which you need to pay employees after all. But that’s a big hike that your customer will probably not welcome, given that he’s likely dealing with his own tariff shock.

So: these tariffs don’t really give an incentive to build in the US. Because it’s far more expensive to build a screw factory than to pay even high tariffs on a foreign screw.

Instead what they likely mean is debt, layoffs, lower quality, and higher prices for any US company that buys parts abroad.

Just to understand how common that is: