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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 13 days

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By James Downie

“If everything’s honest, I’d gladly accept the results.” That was former President Donald Trump on Wednesday, playing cute with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s question over whether he’d accept the outcome of Wisconsin’s presidential election. As my colleague Clarissa-Jan Lim pointed out, Trump has a long track record of similar statements, offering sham justifications to disguise the fact that he doesn’t feel bound by election results. The events of Jan. 6, 2021, laid bare the true consequences of this shell game.

But this latest instance — coupled with statements Trump recently made in his interview with Time magazine — highlight a disturbing and underappreciated aspect of his 2024 campaign. Trump’s approach to election results has become his approach (and his devotees’ approach) to the law more broadly. Even as their policies and rhetoric have become more extreme, Trump and his MAGA acolytes are already lining up the justifications — legal and otherwise — to buttress their extremist and authoritarian agenda in ways that simply didn’t occur to the first Trump administration.

The deportation of millions, the deployment of the National Guard and even the military domestically, the firing of prosecutors, the autocratic expansion of executive authority, the potential weaponization of the Comstock Act to ban abortion: all of these will have excuses that range from “tendentious” to “outright fiction.” Or, as Trump told Time: “I’ll be doing everything on a very legal basis.”

Take, for example, immigration: It’s easy to forget how Trump’s immigration policy has shifted in eight years, even as it has remained consistently bigoted. His 10-point plan on immigration in 2016 consisted of the border wall and a bunch of truisms. (“We’ll build safe zones, which is something I think all of us want to see.”) The military was absent; the word “invasion” was nowhere to be found, and the courts barely merited a mention.

Contrast this with the Time interview, where Trump defends deploying the military both at the border and inland to deport “15 million and maybe as many as 20 million” undocumented immigrants — the equivalent of deporting the entire state of Florida. With bigger autocratic moves come bigger fictions. Migrants are no longer just “bringing crime”; Trump has created a whole separate (and demonstrably false) category of “migrant crime.”

Domestic deployment of the armed forces would seem to violate an 1878 ban on using troops against civilians. But this Trump, unlike the 2016 version, has a legal facade ready to go: Undocumented immigrants are invaders, not civilians, and “I will be complying with court orders.” Those two sentiments may seem difficult to reconcile, given that the former categorization flies in the face of legal precedent. But as recent oral arguments over presidential immunity have illustrated, precedent means little to this Supreme Court.

Immigration is just the tip of a very dangerous iceberg. In close advisers like Stephen Miller and aligned projects like Project 2025, we can see not only the policies but also the underlying justifications and legal authorities they have ready to go. Part of this effort is practical. Trump’s presidency was rife with policy efforts that either never got past the planning stage or wasted months (or even years) in false starts. The reality that Mexico wouldn’t pay for his border wall meant that less than 20% had been built when he left office. His administration spent the better part of a year tossing out different iterations of Trump’s self-described “Muslim ban,” searching for a version that could pass muster in the courts.

Trump’s supporters are determined not to waste time this round. There’s no better example of this than the Comstock Act: Rather than wait for congressional Republicans to pass a new national abortion ban, they could simply resurrect a “zombie law” to criminalize any materials used in abortions and count on the more Trump-friendly courts to back them up.

But mostly this effort is political. As writer Brian Beutler puts it, “To the MAGA core, he offers a bloody revanchism; to the uncommitted, a series of mollifying assurances.” Most of Trump’s signature policy proposals — such as a military deportation force and huge tariff increases — and those of his most devoted advisers are unpopular. So Trump balances the lawless extremes of his ambitions by minimizing how radical his plans sound, hoping to avoid scaring persuadable voters with his authoritarian signals. “When we talk military, generally speaking, I talk National Guard,” he says, as if those two terms are interchangeable. “But if I thought things were getting out of control, I would have no problem using the military.” Just like he’ll accept the results “if everything’s honest.”

“I don’t think they’re bold actions,” Trump tells Time of his policies, “I think they’re actions that are common sense.” But phrases like “if everything’s honest” and “if things were getting out of control” create loopholes as wide as they are chilling. It’s easy to imagine, for example, a deportation force being sent to New York and then beefed up when local residents resist — with horrible consequences. But if the platitudes get him back in the White House, he and his followers will move swiftly to welcome that horror.

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spicysigil · 2 years

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havin a serious meeting with the two most powerful men in the country

#m!dimileth #dimileth #now about those tariffs #what? why are you looking at us like that?#fe3h #owen art

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heathers-letters · 7 days

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May 14, 2024

"[The administration's new] Tariffs will rise to 50% on semiconductors and solar cells, 100% on electric vehicles, and 25% on batteries, a hike that will help the Big Three automakers who agreed to union demands in newly opened battery factories, as well as their United Auto Workers workforce. “I’m determined that the future of electric vehicles be made in America by union workers. Period,” Biden said."

"In other economic news, a new rule capping credit card late fees at $8, about a quarter of what they are now, was supposed to go into effect today, but on Friday a federal judge in Texas blocked the rule. The new cap was set by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the brainchild of Massachusetts Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren, and was part of the Biden administration’s crackdown on “junk fees.”"

"Over the weekend, [Republicans] introduced a bill to force President Biden to send offensive weapons to Israel for its invasion of Rafah, overruling the administration’s decision to withhold a shipment of 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his government would invade Rafah despite strong opposition from the Biden administration. "

Full newsletter under the cut.

Today the White House announced tariffs on certain products imported from China, including steel and aluminum products, semiconductors, electric vehicles, batteries and battery components, solar cells, ship-to-shore cranes, syringes and needles, and certain personal protective equipment (or PPE). According to the White House, these higher tariffs are designed “to protect American workers and businesses from China’s unfair trade practices.” Tariffs are essentially taxes on imported goods, and altogether the tariff hikes cover about $18 billion in imported goods.

In 2018, Trump abruptly ended the economic era based on the idea that free trade benefited the global economy by putting tariffs of 25% on a wide range of foreign made goods. This was a cap to a set of ideas that had been sputtering for a while as industries moved to countries with cheaper labor, feeding the popular discontent Trump tapped into. Trump claimed that other countries would pay his tariffs, but tariffs are actually paid by Americans, not foreign countries, and his have cost Americans more than $230 billion. Half of that has come in under the Biden administration.

Trump’s tariffs also actually cost jobs, but they were very popular politically. A January 2024 National Bureau of Economic Research working paper by David Autor, Anne Beck, David Dorn, and Gordon H. Hanson established that the trade war of 2018–2019 hurt the U.S. heartland but actually helped Trump’s reelection campaign. “Residents of regions more exposed to import tariffs became less likely to identify as Democrats, more likely to vote to reelect Donald Trump in 2020, and more likely to elect Republicans to Congress,” they discovered.

Now Trump is saying, that if elected, he will impose a 10% tariff on everything imported into the United States, with a 60% tariff on anything from China and a 100% tariff on any cars made outside the U.S.

In contrast, the administration’s new tariffs are aimed only at China, and only at industries already growing in the U.S., especially semiconductors. Tariffs will rise to 50% on semiconductors and solar cells, 100% on electric vehicles, and 25% on batteries, a hike that will help the Big Three automakers who agreed to union demands in newly opened battery factories, as well as their United Auto Workers workforce. “I’m determined that the future of electric vehicles be made in America by union workers. Period,” Biden said.

The administration says the tariffs are a response to China’s unfair trade practices, and such tariffs are popular in the manufacturing belt of Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Democratic senators from that region have asked Biden to maintain or increase tariffs on Chinese imports after “[g]enerations of free trade agreements that prioritize multinational corporations have devasted our communities, harmed our economy, and crippled our job market.”

In other economic news, a new rule capping credit card late fees at $8, about a quarter of what they are now, was supposed to go into effect today, but on Friday a federal judge in Texas blocked the rule. The new cap was set by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the brainchild of Massachusetts Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren, and was part of the Biden administration’s crackdown on “junk fees.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Bankers Association sued to stop the rule from taking effect, and U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, appointed by Trump, issued a preliminary injunction against it. His reasoning draws from an argument advanced by the far-right Fifth Circuit, which oversees Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, arguing that the CFPB itself is unconstitutional because of its funding structure. "Consequently, any regulations promulgated under that regime are likely unconstitutional as well," Pittman wrote.

On Friday, major airlines, including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Hawaiian Airlines, and Alaska Airlines—but not Southwest Airlines—sued the U.S. Department of Transportation over its new rule that requires the airlines disclose their fees, such as for checking bags, upfront to consumers. The department says consumers are overpaying by $543 million a year in unexpected fees.

The airlines say that the rule will confuse consumers and that its “attempt to regulate private business operations in a thriving marketplace is beyond its authority.”

The other big story of the day is the continuing attempt of the MAGA Republicans to overturn our democratic system.

This morning, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), second in line for the presidency and sworn to uphold the Constitution, left his post in Washington, D.C., to appear with former president Trump at his trial for falsifying business records to deceive voters before the 2016 election. The House was due to consider the final passage of the crucially important Federal Aviation Authority Reauthorization Act, but Johnson chose instead to show up to do the work the judge’s gag order means Trump cannot do himself, attacking key witness Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer. Johnson described Cohen as “clearly on a mission for personal revenge” and, citing his “history of perjury,” said that “[n]o one should believe a word he says in there.”

“I do have a lot of surrogates,” Trump boasted this morning, “and they are speaking very beautifully.” Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), who was also at the trial this morning, later said on Newsmax that they had indeed gone to “overcome this gag order.”

Johnson went on to call the trial “corrupt” and say “this ridiculous prosecution…is not about justice. It’s all about politics.” He left without taking questions. Meg Kinnard of the Associated Press called out the moment as “a remarkable moment in modern American politics: The House speaker turning his Republican Party against the federal and state legal systems that are foundational to the U.S. government and a cornerstone of democracy.”

Peter Eisler, Ned Parker, and Joseph Tanfani of Reuters explained today how those attacks on our judiciary are sparking widespread calls for violence against judges, with social media posters in echo chambers goading each other into ever more extreme statements. According to her lawyer, Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, wore a bullet-proof vest as she came and went from court, an uncanny echo of the precautions necessary in mob trials.

In a different attack on our constitutional system, House Republicans are trying to replace the administration’s foreign policy with their own. Over the weekend, they introduced a bill to force President Biden to send offensive weapons to Israel for its invasion of Rafah, overruling the administration’s decision to withhold a shipment of 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his government would invade Rafah despite strong opposition from the Biden administration.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters: “We strongly, strongly oppose attempts to constrain the president’s ability to deploy a U.S. security assistance consistent with U.S. foreign policy and national security objectives.”

The Constitution establishes that the executive branch manages foreign affairs, and until 2015 it was an established practice that politics stopped at the water’s edge, meaning that Congress quarreled with the administration at home but the two presented a united front in foreign affairs. That practice ended in March 2015, when 47 Republican senators, led by freshman Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, wrote a letter to Iran’s leaders warning that they would not honor any agreement Iran reached with the Obama administration over its development of nuclear weapons.

The Obama administration did end up negotiating the July 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran and several world powers, under which Iran agreed to restrict its nuclear development and allow inspections in exchange for relief from economic sanctions. In 2018 the extremist Republicans got their way when Trump withdrew the U.S. from the deal, largely collapsing it, after which Iran resumed its expansion of the nuclear enrichment program it had stopped under the agreement.

Now extremists in the House are trying to run foreign policy on their own. The costs of that usurpation of power are clear in Niger, formerly a key U.S. ally in the counterterrorism effort in West Africa. The new prime minister of Niger, Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, whose party took power after a coup d’état threw out Niger’s democratically elected president, defended his country’s turn away from the U.S. and toward Russia in an interview with Rachel Chason of the Washington Post. Recalling the House’s six month delay in passing the national security supplemental bill, he said: “We have seen what the United States will do to defend its allies,” he said, “because we have seen Ukraine and Israel.”

Notes and Citations available by subscribing to Letters from an American: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/

#us politics #activism #joe biden #donald trump #democracy #republicans #vote #tariffs #judges #stormy daniels #junk fees #rafah

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wokeuplaughing · 4 months

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I want the us to balkanize soooo bad I think economic disparity would humble texans correctly

#things texans would have to deal with #1. border control while entering the us #2. having to maintain a visa when working in the states #3. a new currency that will be SIGNIFICANTLY less than the american dollar #4. MASSIVE tariffs on what would now be considered international goods #these dumb fucks think it'd be a conservative safe haven when it'd be literal economic disparity #BALKANIZE! BALKANIZE! BALKANIZE!

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tomorrowusa · 2 months

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US aid to Ukraine, delayed by pro-Putin House Republicans in the US, has caused European NATO members to speed up their own assistance to the Ukrainians.

Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren says Ukraine should receive its first F-16 fighter jets this summer as Europe pushes to aid Kyiv amid complications sparked by a stalled aid package in the U.S. Congress. Ollongren told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service during a visit to Kyiv on March 21 that a plan to deliver 24 F-16s jets is on track, with the first aircraft coming from Denmark. "I think we are on track to see deliveries, first Danish this summer, and then we're going to scale up," she said while declining to give the exact number of planes involved in the first delivery. "We know that we will start with the Danish F-16s, that is now in our planning and in the Ukrainian planning. And in the end, I mean, it doesn't matter anymore. If it's a Dutch or Danish or Norwegian F-16 because [the planes are] going to be Ukrainian." The arrival of the fighter jets will be a long-awaited development to help Kyiv fill a crucial hole in its defense capabilities. Russia has used its more advanced and more numerous jets to repeatedly bomb Ukrainian cities, slow its counteroffensive, and threaten its ships exporting grain crucial to its economic survival, making Kyiv’s acquisition of modern U.S. jets a key ingredient to its successful defense of the country.

There is also talk in Europe of imposing tariffs on Russian grain.

EU eyes tariffs to 'choke off' Russian grain sales

Back in the US, contact your House member and urge support for aid to Ukraine against Putin's genocidal invasion.

With Democrats, thank them for their support; appreciation for previous efforts will encourage them to stay the course. With Republicans, ask them why they are helping one of America's most virulent enemies; tell them that Ronald Reagan would be ashamed of their tacit backing for the Evil Empire.

Find Your Representative

These 18 17 Biden district Republicans are particularly vulnerable.

^^^ 10 of those 17 are from California or New York. Most of those Republicans on that chart are from blue states. This is not something we can dismiss as a red state matter.

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lesbianslovebts · 2 months

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At work today, I did such sexy things with a spreadsheet that I almost moaned

#(i used power query to standardize railroad tariff data)#llbtspost

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usadvlottery · 3 months

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US Immigration and Customs Laws encompass a complex framework governing the movement of people and goods across the United States' borders. These laws are designed to regulate immigration, prevent illegal entry, ensure national security, and facilitate lawful trade and travel. They cover a wide range of topics, including visa requirements, border security measures, customs duties, import/export regulations, and enforcement mechanisms. Compliance with these laws is crucial for maintaining legal status, preventing unauthorized entry, and upholding the nation's safety and security. Various government agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, oversee the enforcement and administration of these laws.

#US immigration laws #Customs regulations USA #Immigration policy United States #Border security regulations #Visa requirements America #Customs duties and tariffs #US immigration enforcement #Legal entry to the US #Immigration and customs compliance #Visa application process #US border control measures #Immigration legislation updates #Customs clearance procedures #Homeland security regulations #Immigration and customs agencies

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snurtle · 1 year

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-_- ouhough for anyone wondering why I suddenly dropped off the face of the earth.... it's because plague. not miss rona, thankfully, but some kind of nasty bug nonetheless.

sipping broth and fantasizing about the trade-routes of fictional kingdoms will pull me through this, i just know it

#the seireitei is aware of other pocket dimensions that may or may not contain people #and Did use them to exile some poor assholes #so like. do you think there is any hyper specialized trade #do you think there are like.. soul fishers who dredge up the garbage between worlds and sell it back to the soul society for profit #what do you think interdimensional tariffs are like #text it

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acnews · 6 days

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#usa news #us politics #usa #usa today #president biden #biden administration #tariffs #trump trial #trump 2024 #donald trump #2024 election

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trendtracker360 · 8 days

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Biden Hikes Tariffs on $18B Chinese Goods: EVs & More

The Biden administration’s recent decision to impose higher import tariffs on $18 billion worth of Chinese goods, particularly targeting the electric vehicle (EV) sector, marks a significant intensification in the ongoing trade war. Aimed at counteracting alleged unfair trade practices by Beijing, these tariffs stretch across various sectors, including EVs, solar panels, and batteries. This bold move is depicted as a strategic maneuver to shield American industries and bolster domestic production of low-emission steel and aluminum, reflecting the administration’s broader trade policy updates. With international trade dynamics and economic impact at the forefront, this tariff increase brings renewed complexity to US-China trade relations, intertwining with broader discussions on technology and global market stability.

Key Takeaways

President Biden has increased tariffs on $18 billion worth of Chinese imports, targeting the EV sector and related industries.

Claims of unfair trade practices by Beijing have prompted these new tariff hikes.

The tariff policy aims to protect U.S. industries by promoting domestic production of steel and aluminum.

This decision adds complexity to US-China trade war dynamics and broader economic impact discussions.

Import tariffs and trade policy updates are central to the Biden administration’s economic strategy.

Market volatility and commodity price fluctuations are key concerns amid these international trade decisions.

To Read More >>> Click Here Meet Our Sponsors:

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 14 days

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Calling the Republican Party the “party of fertilization,” former President Trump continues to make false claims in a recent interview with a Detroit TV station, while simultaneously taking credit for the overturning of Roe vs. Wade.

In an interview last week with FOX-2 Detroit following his Wednesday rally in Saginaw County, anchor Roop Raj asked Trump about the issue of abortion and how much it would impact the November election. The former president argued that the erasure of a 50-year precedent that provided women a constitutional right to an abortion was a positive development.

“I say what the people decide, and whatever it is, it’s within the state and what the people decide, and it’s working out,” said Trump. “For many, many years, people have said we’ve gotta bring this back to the states to decide, and that’s now working.”

Trump then outlined how different states were dealing with abortion rights, but appeared unaware that Michigan had already enshrined those rights in its constitution.

“All the states are deciding, and you know, for 53 years, people wanted to be able to get it out, Roe v Wade, get it out so the states can decide,” Trump said. “Your state [Michigan] will decide probably a liberal policy if it hasn’t already done it. … I think Michigan’s gonna actually be very loose. They’re gonna vote on it, and that’s gonna be the law.”

In 2022, Michigan voters overwhelmingly approved securing the right to an abortion and other reproductive rights, less than six months after the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause no longer provided a federal right to an abortion. Three of the six votes in favor of that decision were made by justices appointed to the court by Trump.

Trump also told Raj the GOP was “the party of fertilization because we are for the women,” referencing one of the issues that resulted from the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, namely in vitro fertilization (IVF).

“We wanna help the women because they were gonna end fertilization, which is where when the IVF, where women go to the clinics and they get help in having a baby, and that’s a good thing, not a bad thing. And we’re for it a 100%. They tried to say that they weren’t for it. They actually weren’t for it and aren’t for it as much as us, but women see that,” said Trump.

The IVF issue came to the forefront in February when the Alabama Supreme Court, citing the Dobbs decision nine times, ruled that embryos had the full legal rights of citizens. That left IVF clinics facing costly litigation, prompting a temporary halt to the procedure in that state until it passed a law extending criminal and civil immunity to IVF providers and patients. But because the measure didn’t declare when life begins, clinics there are still moving away from providing the service out of litigation concerns.

Trump’s claim that “they weren’t for it,” presumably meaning the Democratic Party, is false. In fact, Democrats like U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois — a disabled veteran who used IVF to become a mother — had been warning since at least 2022 that IVF would be the next target of GOP-led legislatures and courts if Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Additionally, Senate Republicans have rejected attempts to protect access to IVF treatments, while a bill sponsored by House Democrats, H.R. 7056, the Access to Family Building Act, which would establish a federal right to access assisted reproductive technology, including IVF, remains bottled up in committee by the Republican-led chamber.

Trump continued to insist in the interview that abortion “was not that big of an issue,” and “should be largely taken off the table.”

He also continued to push the false claim that abortions were routinely being done in the final month of pregnancy, or beyond.

“Nobody wants to see abortions in the ninth month and the eighth month and the seventh month, and nobody wants to see abortions or, in this case, killing after the baby is born,” Trump told Raj. “Right now, that’s what the Democrats can do. They can have it in the seventh, eighth, ninth month, and they can kill the baby. In numerous states, they can kill the baby after the baby is born, and nobody wants that. Nobody.”

Since at least 2016, Trump has been making the claim of abortions in the final days of pregnancy or even killing babies after they are born, and it has been fact-checked time and again as false.

And according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, less than 1% of all abortions are performed after 21 weeks of gestation — in the fifth month of pregnancy.

Raj asked Trump about Florida’s six-week abortion ban that went into effect last week.

“You have to understand, every legal scholar from all over the country, all over the world, they said ‘You have to get abortion out of the federal government, you have to take it away from the federal government, give it to the states’, and now that’s what we’ve been able to do. We’ve given it to the states, and some states have already decided, and people are satisfied with it.”

While there were certainly scholars who believed Roe had been decided incorrectly, they didn’t represent a majority, much less anything close to unanimity.

“Any claim that all legal scholars wanted Roe overturned is mind-numbingly false,” Rutgers Law School professor Kimberly Mutcherson, a legal scholar who supported the preservation of Roe, told CNN, which quoted several other legal experts in fact-checking that assertion as false.

“The people within the states … they seem to be very happy with the way it’s working out,” added Trump.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights, since the overturning of Roe, 30 states have enacted abortion policies that range from restrictive to the most restrictive.

Raj also asked Trump about labor policies, unions, immigration and the war against Hamas in Gaza.

When asked about the success of union efforts in southern states, such as the UAW’s historic victory last month with Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tenn., who voted by a nearly 3-1 margin to join the UAW, Trump instead talked about China building car plants in Mexico, insisted the public didn’t want all electric vehicles (EVs) and ended up in a diatribe against President Joe Biden.

“This character that’s destroyed our country, the worst president we’ve ever had, without question,” said Trump. “He’s destroying our country. What he’s doing with cars, he’s forcing the auto industry into China and other countries, and it’s so sad. And, by the way, Mexico is doing things that nobody can believe. They just started, and they’re doing them in conjunction with China, and it’s gotta be stopped. We can’t let that happen.”

Raj restated his question about growing union support in states like Tennessee that have been less than welcoming to organized labor in the past.

“Well, it could be happening,” Trump said. “I mean, it’s gonna be happening, but you gotta be very careful about what’s gonna happen in two years from now when China wants to take all of the jobs. Because frankly, then union or non-union, everybody’s gonna be hurt. Everybody.”

There have been concerns about Chinese automakers looking to avoid U.S. tariffs by building vehicles in Mexico and the Biden administration has addressed the issue. Last month, Reuters reported that under pressure from the U.S., Mexico was refusing to offer Chinese automakers incentives to build factories there such as low-cost public land or tax cuts for investment in EV production.

The report also quoted an official with the Office of the United States Trade Representative as saying the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which was negotiated during the Trump Administration, did not allow “a back door to China and others who may be seeking to access our market without paying … tariffs.”

On the topic of Israeli military attacks against Hamas in Gaza, in which more than 34,000 people have been killed according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza, Trump was asked how he would try and end the hostilities, and indicated he would give Israel a free hand.

“You gotta finish it off fast. You gotta get it done, and then you gotta have peace. And we’ll make peace fast. But you gotta get your work done and you gotta have peace. You know that Oct. 7 was terrible,” Trump said, referring to Hamas’ terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians that killed about 1,200 people.

The interview closed with Raj asking Trump if he would debate Biden on statewide television in Michigan.

“If you can get him, I’m there. I’ll go anywhere he wants to go,” said Trump. “What he’s done to Michigan is so bad. What he’s done to our country is so bad. What other man, what other person, would allow 15, 16 million people right now in our country? They came from prisons and jails. They came from insane asylums and mental institutions, not from South America, from all over the world, they’re pouring into our country at levels that nobody’s ever seen. Drug dealers. One stat before we go, Venezuela was very crime-ridden. They announced the other day 72% reduction in crime in the last year. You know why? They moved all their criminals from Venezuela right into the good old USA, and Biden let them do it. It’s a disgrace.”

“But, sir, where are those numbers coming from?” asked Raj.

“I guess I get them from the papers in this case. I think it’s a federal statement or well, they’re coming actually from Venezuela. They’re coming from Venezuela. That’s where they can’t come from,” said Trump.

Punishing sanctions imposed against Venezuela during the Trump administration have been blamed as at least one cause of the mass migration out of that nation. Trump also didn’t mention that one of his last acts as President was to give Venezuelan exiles in the U.S. illegally protection from deportation.

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realwinterbro · 9 days

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so we're not getting the cheap ($12k USD) electric cars because... Chinese electric vehicles would outcompete US auto manufacturers if they were allowed into the market. 100% tariff under the Biden administration because it's a "national security threat" to have affordable electric vehicles on the street. and they'll still try and sell you on the free market being the divinely ordained solution to all man's problems

#china #us foreign policy #biden #tariffs #anyway capitalism incentivizes stifling competitors‚ not out-competing them #if it was about making the best product possible we would have had electric vehicles being charged by nuclear power plants fifty years ago #and be on renewables today

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holoandwolf-blog · 1 month

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The average American pays $11.97 more on food due to added sugar and monopolistic practices in the food industry. 🍔 Tariffs and lack of competition drive up prices more in the US than anywhere else. 🌽

#youtube #The average American pays $11.97 more on food due to added sugar and monopolistic practices in the food industry. 🍔 Tariffs and lack of com #usa #American #average American #us #suger #Tariffs

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worldofwardcraft · 3 months

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How he plans to wreck the economy.

March 7, 2024

Most of the alarm over a second Donald Trump presidency revolves around his authoritarian fantasies of turning the office into a dictatorship and using it to extinguish the criminal prosecutions against him, sic the justice system on his perceived enemies, jettison the Constitution, and deport or imprison migrant refugees (starting, he says, with "the bad ones").

Meanwhile, little attention is being paid to the potential damage a Trump 2.0 could have on the American economy. The LA Times suggests one possibility:

Trump hasn’t outlined much of an economic program, but he has promised to impose a massive increase in tariffs on imports from almost all foreign countries — everything from bananas and baby formula to computer chips and machine parts.

Trump, of course, still doesn't have any idea how tariffs work. He continues to believe other nations pay the taxes on imported goods and not the buyers of them (like Walmart shoppers and American companies that depend on foreign products). Trump regales gullible GOPers with tales of how his trade wars brought billions of dollars into the US Treasury — money that actually came out of the pockets of American consumers and businesses.

Thus, the clueless economic ignoramus has announced his intention to compound his error (if elected) with a worldwide 10% tariff. And, just like last time, his proposed tariffs will curb investment growth and spur unemployment. As ABC News observed,

In all, the U.S. levied tariffs on thousands of products valued at approximately $380 billion in 2018 and 2019, according to an analysis by the nonprofit Tax Foundation. Trump's tariffs decreased U.S. employment by 166,000 jobs, the group found, citing increased import costs for U.S. employers.

Trump's plans to reverse America's currently robust economic growth (thanks, President Biden) also include reducing the labor supply by cracking down on immigration and deporting workers already here, expanding the budget deficit with more tax cuts, and gutting federal agencies charged with protecting workers and regulating markets.

In addition, the AP reports that he has proposed "a four-year plan to phase out Chinese imports of essential goods, including electronics, steel and pharmaceuticals." And, according to The Washington Post, "Trump has lately signaled plans to strong-arm the Fed if he recaptures the White House and force it to cut rates."

In a televised interview in January, Trump said he hoped an economic crash would come in 2024 because "I don't want to be Herbert Hoover." But if he ever gets to carry out his moronic plans for our economy, he'll make Hoover look good.

#trump tariffs #us economy #trump presidency #trump legacy

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