Edwin Bower Hesser

AMERICA CHARGE ON! LET YOUR VOICES BE HEARD. IN PROTEST!!

'Forced her way in': 2 Dem lawmakers storm in Johnson’s office over latest move for Musk Two Democratic lawmakers stormed into House Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-LA) office "unscheduled" Wednesday over President Donald Trump ally, billionaire Elon Musk's new access to the US Department of Treasury's highly sensitive payment system, Politico reports. Per the report, Reps. Judy Chu (D-CA) an...

AMERICA. WE MUST SAVE THE PRESS. NOT THE LIE MACHINE. FROM THE RIGHT!!

$16.59 Mexican Vanilla free with $10 through Wednesday’s Capitol Marches. $20.74 once Trump Tariff Pricing begins.

To get your free $16.59/$20.74 bottle of Mexican Vanilla Extract in one of our stores, just spend $10 and show an image of this post on your phone or printed out.

Online at penzeys.com, once you have at least $10 in spending enter the code DUMB into the apply code box at checkout. No need to put the Vanilla in you basket. The DUMB code will do that for you and for free.

You can see our Mexican Vanilla Extract here: https://www.penzeys.com/online-catalog/vanilla-mexican/c-24/p-3086/pd-s

And anyway you look at them, tariffs are DUMB. I get that through this election both economists and environmental scientists were silenced, but we really do have to find our way quickly back to valuing the voices of people who know things.

People who understand how economies work know nothing good will come of these tariffs. If you want to incentivize national production or even penalize importing, there are much better ways to do it that are far less likely to cripple our economy or bring the Biden-tamed inflation roaring back.

I get that Donald Trump has the image of a successful businessman, but that image is about as real as his tan. As someone who, for decades, has been making a living that involves importing ingredients that simply aren’t produced in America, there are two things I would like you to know.

One. A huge chunk of America’s economy is based on the reality that a lot of things on the opposite side of the planet are worth far more once brought here. The shift from being worth $3 there to being worth $10 here pays for a whole lot of our wages, and rents, and infrastructure. And then that money gets spent and re-spent here. Imports are a big part of why so many of us have jobs.

Two. Part of why Trump’s Tariff Tax on consumers is so dumb is that it doesn’t just raise the cost of goods by the cost of the tariff. The truth is, a business just raising prices ten percent doesn’t bring it ten percent more money. Some people won’t want to pay 10% more and will quit buying. Some people simply won’t be able to pay more.

Either way, a business facing a tariff will have to raise prices by higher than the tariff to offset the negative impact higher prices have on sales. This is a big part of why tariffs inevitably send inflation off to the races. If Trump actually was a successful businessman he would know this. He wasn’t, so he doesn’t.

I would also like to say Mexican Vanilla Extract is Love.

Tasty baked treats share love. And when bakers bake to share their love, Vanilla is right there. It is so fitting that something so intrinsic to goodness comes from Mexico.

In this time when actual villains are trying to vilify good people for doing our hardest jobs, I love that Vanilla from Mexico can be the perfect reminder of how lucky we are to share a border with such decent people.

Once again Trump is well on his way to reminding us that workers from Mexico fit a category we first learned of in his last administration which is “essential worker.” It would be great if in his third term : ) he could find a way to remind us of how much we depend on workers from south of our border without crashing our economy. At least he is consistent.

And March to your Capitol Wednesday. You can easily find the times for your capitol online. This seems to be a pretty loose group of people coming together to say they stand against the incredible cruelty of this first two weeks of the Trump administration.

Hard to say what kind of impact Wednesday will make, but I do know the more cooks that show up, the greater the difference that will be made. Much of the healing in this world comes from the kindness and empathy of cooks. This is looking to be a busy four years for us.

Don’t forget your DUMB code at penzeys.com for your free Vanilla with $10 spending. Nothing dumb about treating our neighbors with the same decency we would like to be treated with. We are so lucky to share borders with both Canada and Mexico. Both have more than earned our respect. Let’s get back to treating them like the good neighbors they are.

Thanks for cooking. Thanks for caring. Thanks for reaching out to share love and support for everyone this administration is out to hurt.

Stay as strong as you can,

Bill

[email protected]