He's a nearly-complete dingus, but he's right about this. Congress has completely surrendered their power to the executive branch.

Manufacturing relies on supply chains (which can be fragile) and expertise (which isn't readily available). If you just start hacking and slashing with a blunt instrument like tariffs, it's no wonder that manufacturing doesn't suddenly increase.

This. From what I understand, Tom Mueller was the genius behind the success of the Falcon 9. He left SpaceX in 2020 and I have my doubts the company can replicate that same success with Elon fully in control.

I love my local bookstore! I buy all my dead-tree-carcass editions there. I have also started buying ebooks through bookstore.org which will share 30% of profits with my local bookstore.

I went into the Woodcraft store a few weeks ago and got into a 1-hour fountain pen nerdfest with an employee and another customer. That would NEVER happen at a big box store.

Definitely. I recently discovered there is a Woodcraft store near where I live and I am determined to buy as many tools there as I can instead of Lowe's or Home Depot.

I enjoyed the first few books, but then I found that the story got bogged down in an infinite variety of palace intrigue scenarios, interspersed with sexual violence. I just tired of it.