What has Trump done now?

[willedoo]

I wonder how he will work the tariffs on imported components used in manufacturing American cars. Would it be a blanket rate or on a sliding scale depending on the percentage of foreign content in cars. I read where one of the Tesla models has the highest percentage of American components of all the American made cars. I think our Teslas are made in China.

[nomadpete]

5 hours ago, old man emu said:

getting government hands off business a central tenet of Trump's political philosophy?

Philosophy it not a word that comes to mind.

Call me a cynic, but I expect the dynamic duo to agree that government and prosecuters must heep their hands off a select few.

 

 

 

Edited November 18 by nomadpete

[nomadpete]

2 minutes ago, willedoo said:

one of the Tesla models has the highest percentage of American components of all the American made cars.

How could anybody fact check this assertion?

[willedoo]

The Tesla Model 3 Long Range at 87.5% according to this university study.

 

https://www.kbb.com/car-news/report-tesla-makes-the-most-american-cars/

[willedoo]

On the reverse side, the Americans apply a percentage ruling on their control over foreign manufacturing using American components. I forget the exact figure, somewhere around 10 or 15% maybe. The Iranians and Russians were once working on an idea to manufacture the Sukhoi Superjet under license in Iran and the Americans blocked it because of American components in the Sukhoi.

[red750]

'Will blow up in Trump's face': Experts blast reported 'autocrat move' on military leaders

 

Political and legal experts spoke out Saturday after it was reported that Donald Trump's transition team is compiling a list of senior current and former U.S. military officials to see if they could be court-martialed.

NBC News dropped the exclusive report over the weekend, saying the Trump team is "considering creating a commission to investigate the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan."

 

Online, some also lashed out at the news.

 

Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance, for instance, noted that it was Trump himself who "signed the timeline agreement for Afghanistan withdrawal."

 

Read more here

 

 

[red750]

'Starting to fail': Trump said to have already 'planted seeds of his own political demise'

 

Donald Trump hasn't even taken office yet, but he's already made a major misstep, according to a former Republican writer.

 

Trump, who is going to be entering his second term as a "lame duck" President, has been under fire for his nominations to important posts, including former lawmaker Matt Gaetz, who would be Attorney General.

 

Those nominations could be his undoing, according to New York Timescolumnist David French, an ex-writer for the conservative National Review.

 

Read more here

[rgmwa]

Lunchtime on the aerial clown car. Kennedy is going to Make America Healthy Again right after he polishes off his Big Mac and Coke.

 

Edited November 18 by rgmwa

[red750]

He claimed McDonalds wasn't food, it was poison.

[red750]

Vivek Ramaswamy Pledges To ‘Delete’ Entire Government Agencies Alongside Elon Musk

 

Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who has been named to lead President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed Department of Government Efficiency alongside tech billionaire Elon Musk, promised Sunday that many government agencies will soon be “deleted.”

 

“Elon and I aren’t in this for the credit,” Ramaswamy said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “But I think we’re going to build the consensus to make the kind of deep cuts that haven’t been made for most of our history.”

 

After host Maria Bartiromo questioned whether the two plan to “close down entire agencies,” Ramaswamy said “mass reductions” will be made.

 

“We expect certain agencies to be deleted outright,” he said. “We expect mass reductions in force in areas of the federal government that are bloated. We expect massive cuts among federal contractors and others who are overbilling the federal government.”

 

Read more here

[old man emu]

Just don't upset the postal workers!!!!!!

[facthunter]

UPS couldn't get any worse.  Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

Yeah, but you don't want them going postal

[red750]

People are now wondering if Musk has replaced Vance as VP. Musk is rarely separated from Trump. and Vance has been conspicuously absent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[rgmwa]

He doesn't need Vance anymore, so don't expect to hear much about him.

[red750]

HE might think he doesn't need Vance, and poosibly not if he has replaced Vance with Musk, although I saw an article where Mumk was virtually camped at Mar-a-Lago, Trump saying "I can't get rid of him."

 

However, the constitution requires a VP to act as president in the event of the president being incapacitated.

[Marty_d]

Both the next president and his VP are already mentally incapacitated, so that's a problem.

[rgmwa]

11 minutes ago, red750 said:

However, the constitution requires a VP to act as president in the event of the president being incapacitated.

Yes, that’s true but Trump has moved on.

[red750]

Here is a quick resume of all Trumps picks for office so far.

 

See the list here.

[red750]

Nastiness of Trump's 'bottomless well of zingers' is biggest threat to democracy: analysis

 

Donald Trump views himself as a comedian first and a leader second, argued Alexander Karin for Salon — and the problem is that Trump's sense of humor is getting darker and more twisted as time wears on.

 

This comes after a campaign that ended in controversy over a right-wing comedian's attack on Puerto Rico as a "floating island of garbage" at Trump's rally in Madison Square Garden.

 

The contrast between Trump’s policy ineptitude and his razor-sharp comedy is remarkable," wrote Karin. For example, when Trump was asked how he would reform the Affordable Care Act, "Trump sputtered lamely about 'concepts of a plan.' When pressed for a specific proposal on how to provide affordable child care to American workers, Trump rambled incoherently through an embarrassing list of non-sequiturs."

 

And yet, "the election results show us such stumbles can be excused. That’s because when it comes to lambasting his opponents and tickling the funny bone of the MAGA base, the incoming comedian-in-chief pulls from a seemingly bottomless well of zingers."

 

But, Karin wrote, Trump's "jokes" are getting more hateful and more violent.

 

For instance, "at a rally days before the election, Trump brought the house down once again by declaring open season on members of the press. 'Weaving' through an imagined assassination scenario, Trump explained that political violence sometimes has an unexpected upside: 'To get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news, and I don’t mind that so much.' In a video from the event, audience members can be seen roaring at the thought of a media bloodbath."

 

Ultimately, he continued, "Trump is a jester inside the palace, playing at the role of king, but mocking the very idea of principled leadership in the process. Flouting the rules is his schtick, and it seems MAGA cannot get enough."

 

And that represents a deeper rot at the heart of what we are as a country, he wrote.

 

"Political fences can be mended, if there is goodwill on both sides," Karin concluded — but "cultural rifts, on the other hand, can be impossible to bridge. American democracy cannot survive four more years of derisive laughter at the expense of our unity."

[red750]

Elon Musk’s bromance with Donald Trump isn’t going down that well in MAGAworld anymore

 

Lawmakers and policy shops have largely moved on from the shock of Kamala Harris’s defeat and are preparing for Donald Trump’s return to the city in January.

 

Joe Biden was among those who seemed to have made peace with the outcome over the past few days. Now firmly in the “lame duck” stage of his presidency, the president spent the weekend in South America, participating in the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro.

 

Meanwhile, the race to fill Trump’s remaining Cabinet positions fell under the shadow of the newest member of the president-elect’s entourage: Elon Musk.

 

The Twitter/X CEO — who now travels with Trump frequently and hangs around Mar-a-Lago when not — is using his massive platform and his access to the president-elect in an attempt to shape the incoming administration.

 

See more here

[red750]

Trump claims he has an ‘unprecedented’ mandate. Experts say it’s actually very small

 

As the votes were tallied and the Electoral College map turned red, Donald Trump declared to supporters at his election night victory party that the American people had given him “an unprecedented and powerful mandate.” A wave of cabinet nominations consisting of MAGA loyalists and fringe figures in the days that followed showed he really believed it. There was to be no reaching across the aisle.

 

But Trump’s margin of victory, historically speaking, is very small. Although he may have won handily in the Electoral College by 312 to 226, he is estimated to win the popular vote by around 1.6 percent. That puts him in 16th place among post-Second World War presidential victories, just behind Jimmy Carter, but ahead of his 2016 performance when he lost the popular vote but still won the keys to the White House.

 

Trump can claim the title of being the first Republican to win the popular vote in 20 years — but that says more about the quirks of the Electoral College and the popularity of Republicans than it does about the man himself.

 

So can the President-elect really claim to have an “unprecedented” mandate for change?

 

“I’m not sure that other presidents would read that as a mandate, but Donald Trump is a different case,” said Mark Updegrove, a presidential historian and CEO of the LBJ Foundation. “Whether Trump has a mandate or not doesn’t matter. He’s going to tell you he has a mandate because he wants to do what he wants to do. He would exploit any advantage.”

 

It wasn’t always this way. Updegrove noted a contrast between Trump and John F Kennedy, who proceeded with caution following his very close win in the 1960 election.

 

“[Kennedy] was very wary not to do anything that might look liberal or too partisan-oriented after he just barely squeaked by in the Electoral College,” he said.

 

Only two other post-war presidents have raised the notion of their mandate in their election victory speeches.

 

Lyndon Johnson, who won the popular vote by a whopping 22.58 percent in 1964, said that he had been given “a mandate for unity, for a government that serves no special interest, no business government, no labor government, no farm government, no one faction, no one group, but a government that is the servant of all the people.”

 

 

[red750]

Trump's plan to use the military for deportations sparks liberal fury

 

President-elect Donald Trump is hinting that he is willing to declare a national emergency to push through the biggest mass deportation in history.

 

He gave a simple one-word response to an ally who said there are reports that the incoming president will use 'military assets to reverse the Biden invasion through a mass deportation program.'

 

Trump wrote 'TRUE!!!' on his Truth Social platform early Monday in response, seemingly confirming the secretive plan and sending Democrats into a frenzy.

 

There was also outrage overnight after a now-deleted tweet suggested that Republican Senator Mitch McConnell said there would be 'no recess appointments' to help Trump out together his Cabinet. 

 

And the hosts of MSNBC's Morning Joe have revealed they held a face-to-face meeting with Donald Trump for the first time in seven years last week.

[red750]

Rudy Giuliani demands court delay his defamation trial so he can attend Trump’s inauguration

 

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is asking the court to delay his trial with the pair of election workers he defamed so he can attend Donald Trump’s inauguration.

 

Giuliani’s trial is scheduled for January 16, 2025, four days before President-elect Trump’s inauguration. The cash-strapped former mayor has now asked the court to adjourn the trial - which is to enforce the $150 million bankruptcy court judgment against Giuliani - until on or after January 22, so that he can attend the inauguration events.

 

“There would be no harm to the plaintiffs by a delay of a few days in the trial schedule, and I am sure that the Court would have other dates available other than January 16, 17, or 20, 2025 for this trial,” when the inauguration events are set to take place, argued Joseph Cammarata, an attorney for Giuliani, in a Friday letter to the judge.

 

Cammarata is now representing Giuliani after his previous lawyer suddenly quit last week. On Monday, the judge ordered that the matter be discussed at a hearing scheduled for November 26.

 

Read more here

[red750]