Living under Trump 2 aka Musk!!!

[China]

Trump says he'll hit Canadian goods with 25% tariff next week after month-long pause

U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday he will go forward with a 25 per cent tariff on most imports from Canada next week, saying the country has ripped off the U.S. for too long and it's time to put a stop to it.

Speaking to reporters at a White House news conference with the French president, Trump said work to implement those tariffs is "moving along very rapidly."

"The tariffs are going forward on time, on schedule. This is an abuse that took place for many, many years. The tariffs will go forward, yes, and we're going to make up a lot of territory," Trump said.

Earlier this month, Trump threatened to levy a devastating 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods — except energy, which would be levied at 10 per cent — going so far as to draw up an executive order to implement the regime.

Trump ultimately pulled back after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agreed to deploy more resources at the border to tamp down on drugs and migrants crossing into the U.S.

Now, Trump signalled that the pause will be lifted around March 4 as planned despite meaningful improvement at the border with the number of migrants apprehended and the quantity of drugs seized plummeting.

"Our country will be extremely liquid and rich again," Trump said.

Click on the link for the full article

[hail2skins]

Somewhat balanced piece by NR's Charles W Cooke

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine ... eak-trump/

[88Commanders00]

[China]

Trump’s Cabinet members have already backtracked on some promises made before being confirmed

As they mustered support for their confirmations by the U.S. Senate, some of President Donald Trump’s appointees made statements from which they’ve already distanced themselves upon taking office.

From the leadership of the FBI to vaccine schedules and Russia sanctions, here’s a look at some of those promises and the subsequent action in their own words.

Kash Patel, FBI director
What he’s said: According to Natalie Bara, president of the FBI Agents Association, Patel agreed last month — before becoming FBI director — that the agency’s No. 2 position should be held by a career agent as has been tradition for the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency.

What he’s done: Patel cheered Trump’s decision to go the opposite direction.

Later Sunday, after Bara’s internal newsletter with Patel’s comments, Trump announced in a post on his Truth Social platform that Dan Bongino, a former U.S. Secret Service agent who ran unsuccessfully for office and gained fame as a conservative pundit with TV shows and a popular podcast, had been chosen to serve as FBI deputy director.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., health and human services secretary
What he’s said: During his Senate confirmation hearings, Kennedy promised Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., that he would not change the nation’s current vaccination schedule.

What he’s done: Speaking for the first time to thousands of U.S. Health and Human Services agency employees, Kennedy on Feb. 18 vowed to investigate the childhood vaccine schedule that prevents measles, polio and other dangerous diseases.

Scott Bessent, treasury secretary
What he’s said: During his confirmation hearing, Bessent called for stronger sanctions on Russia, saying that former President Joe Biden wasn’t “muscular” enough on sanctioning Russian oil because he was too scared of driving the cost of oil up during the elections.

What he’s done: As Trump’s tone on Russia changed, however, Bessent said the U.S. is prepared to either ramp up or take down sanctions on Russia depending on Russia’s willingness to negotiate an end to the war.

Brooke Rollins, agriculture secretary
What she’s said: “It is one of my top four priorities on day one, putting the right team in place to ensure that what you discussed and outlined is happening,” Rollins told senators Jan 23, in response to a question as to how she would stem the spread of avian flu.

What she’s done: In comments to agency staff, Rollins said Feb. 14 that she was “proud to invite the Department of Government Efficiency here into USDA,” saying she welcomed the effort “with open arms.”

Four days later, the department scrambled to rehire several workers who were involved in the government’s response to the ongoing bird flu outbreak that has devastated egg and poultry farms over the past three years, but who were among the thousands of federal employees eliminated on Musk’s recommendations.

Click on the link for the full article

[The Evil Genius]

[NotasLong StillLeft]

Opinion

The Coup Has Failed


Click on the link for more

I saw this earlier, it made me happy at first, but I think it's a bit too soon. I do think the coup will fail/is failing, but to give people the idea that its now done and thats all, is dangerous. This is far from over and they continue to try again and again. Hopefully, this rage sticks around for the midterms, we're going to need it.

Agree that it’s a little too soon to get giddy, which is all the more reason to push hard for the upcoming elections. If Democrats can take both houses of Congress, the coup is well and truly done. If only the Democratic Party could get its collective head out of his ass, and present a party-wide, cohesive message to the public that would give them hope, and embolden them against the orange tyrant, there might be a slim chance to eradicate some of the shits the gop have taken on this country.

[SWIM]

Opinion

The Coup Has Failed

Last week, The Washington Post reported that Donald Trump was about to announce a reorganization of the U.S. Postal Service by executive order, firing the Postal Board of Governors and moving the quasi-independent agency under the Commerce Department. Liberals were outraged, and some were miffed that Joe Biden couldn’t even fire Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. But everyone drove past one fact: The very idea is ridiculous.

In his previous discussions of USPS, Trump had talked about privatizing it, not bringing it further into the federal government. Only Congress, though, can actually reorganize an agency that it established through statute. Unlike USAID, the impact of shaking up USPS would be immediately felt by every American with a mailbox, a group that gives the Postal Service the second-highest approval ratings of any federal agency. And then, there’s this little point: By law, the Postal Service is generally exempt from executive orders.

The White House walked back the story almost immediately, saying there was no executive order in the works. When Trump was asked about it, he went into his usual mode of bullshitting on something where he has no real plan: he was “thinking about doing that” and “looking at it.”

This is an administration that has set a standard of constant consolidation of power and punishment of enemies. A month in, the Postal Service trial balloon and quick cleanup shows it has run out of ideas. But the real question about Trump’s second term was always whether he would bully the country into an effective monarchy, or fall prey to the laws of political gravity.

I’m taking a pundit risk by saying that we now have that answer, after one month in office: Trump’s cooked.

His failure has followed the usual direction of political overreach. Brave dissidents from the political opposition, corporate America, or his own coalition didn’t suddenly rise to the challenge. It started from the bottom up, as the governed gradually but definitively withdrew their consent, giving space for those we somehow call “leaders” to distance themselves.

This doesn’t mean that the subsequent three years and eleven months will be a garden of earthly delights. Terrible things are going to happen. Good people will be persecuted and bad people elevated pretty much every day for the next 1,400 or so. But when Trump disgracefully walks out of Washington in 2029, I’m far more inclined to believe that we will have a government to return to.

THE THING ABOUT POPULISM IS you have to be popular. The moment you lose touch with the public mood, you lose the ability to set your agenda without friction. I wrote on Valentine’s Day about the big warning sign in consumer sentiment, the unanchored inflation expectations that keep resetting higher. Trump has set himself up as the only person in the government who matters, so every national problem falls on his head. Since he’s done nothing to address those inflation concerns, voters are already starting to assign blame.

Four polls showed measurable drops in his approval rating in the last week, putting him in the lowest position for a president one month after an inauguration since … Donald Trump, in 2017. A Reuters poll found the percentage of the public thinking the country’s on the wrong track rose ten points in a month, and only 32 percent approved of Trump on inflation. His economic approval ratings are lower than at any point in his first term.

When every headline out of Washington is about Elon Musk (who is also increasingly unpopular) firing workers and dismantling agencies and going after DEI programs and taking over IT systems for obscure reasons, it’s no wonder people see the president as focused on the wrong issues. Americans believe Trump has overstepped his authority, but if they were seeing lower prices as a result they probably wouldn’t care, sadly. The disconnect matters more than the lawlessness.

But as the economy drifts toward a combination of higher unemployment and higher inflation last seen in the presidency of the late Jimmy Carter, Trump will find it harder to simply sweep in and take power. A town hall held by Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) last week, in a district that went for Trump 60-38, was a disaster, with angry constituents demanding that he stand up for them and not let Trump control the federal budget and cut services for the needy. Other deep-red districts have seen similar dynamics. In rural eastern Oregon, at a town hall held by Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-OR) in a county that went 68 percent for Trump, the crowd shouted, “Tax Elon,” “Tax the wealthy,” “Tax the rich,” and “Tax the billionaires.” In Oklahoma, constituents demanded that Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK), who won in November 60-34, put Musk under oath. In Wisconsin, Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) won by a similar number; at a town hall near Oshkosh, he faced a parade of boos and shouts, as did fellow Wisconsinite Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI).

For weeks, we’ve seen Republicans effectively falling mute at the actions of the president. All it took was a drop in polling support and some angry town halls to flip that. Here’s Rep. Troy Balderson (R-OH) calling Trump’s executive orders “out of control” and stating that Congress must decide whether federal agencies live or die. His district went Trump, 66-33. Here’s freshman Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-PA) saying he’ll never take away the benefits his neighbors rely on, including Medicaid. Here’s Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho, of all places, opposing the mass firing that hit the National Park Service rather hard.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) spoke publicly on the Senate floor and was among several Republicans taking shots at Trump’s claims about Ukraine being the aggressor in its war with Russia. That kind of public repudiation is new and entirely due to Trump’s collapsing favorability. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) furrowing her brow and expressing concern is a perennial, but saying that Trump violated the Constitution by engaging in impoundment is something new for her. Even Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) had to grudgingly admit that it was up to Congress to sanction all the DOGE spending cuts, even if he liked what they were doing.

All that is on top of the usual tensions within the executive branch hierarchies, particularly with respect to Musk, who is angering cabinet officials and Trump’s inner circle. Republican lawmakers are focusing on Musk too, which would make it easier for Trump to respond to a turn in fortunes by jettisoning him. But Trump’s the one who made all the promises about improving voters’ lives, and he would never fire himself.

The biggest example of the change in mood in the country may be happening at Paramount (which owns CBS). It looked almost certain a month ago that the studio would follow what Disney, Facebook, and X have done by settling frivolous lawsuits with Trump. Paramount’s is about a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris that Trump absurdly claims was deceptively edited to try to cost him the election. The studio is finalizing a sale to Skydance and needs federal approval, which was thought to be the reason it would settle as a gift to the president. But that settlement appears far away now, and Paramount has fought back, including by pursuing a trial where it could obtain Trump’s personal financial information in discovery. That does not happen if Trump is riding high among the public; a diminished figure is easier to rebuke.

None of this will get federal regulators to enforce white-collar crime again. We’re in for an orgy of deregulation, and the tax cut fight still will likely work out well for billionaires, with at least some vulnerable folks paying the price. And in foreign policy, presidents have more of a free hand. Saying that Trump’s coup failed doesn’t change this decidedly dim outlook.

Click on the link for more

Unfortunately this article bases its conclusions off of a false premise. The coup hasn’t failed because trumps approval is low or because of the majority of the country no longer agrees with him.

Do the majority of North Koreans or Iranians agree with their respective leaders? What about in Russia?

All that matters is that you have select people in positions of power where they can help you maintain and consolidate your power. And Trump has that from congress to the courts.

His power in the courts is the most dangerous as it is the one that will be the slowest/most difficult to correct and decisions his courts make can work to prolong his position of power in the executive branch/legislature.

[NotasLong StillLeft]

Opinion

The Coup Has Failed

Last week, The Washington Post reported that Donald Trump was about to announce a reorganization of the U.S. Postal Service by executive order, firing the Postal Board of Governors and moving the quasi-independent agency under the Commerce Department. Liberals were outraged, and some were miffed that Joe Biden couldn’t even fire Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. But everyone drove past one fact: The very idea is ridiculous.

In his previous discussions of USPS, Trump had talked about privatizing it, not bringing it further into the federal government. Only Congress, though, can actually reorganize an agency that it established through statute. Unlike USAID, the impact of shaking up USPS would be immediately felt by every American with a mailbox, a group that gives the Postal Service the second-highest approval ratings of any federal agency. And then, there’s this little point: By law, the Postal Service is generally exempt from executive orders.

The White House walked back the story almost immediately, saying there was no executive order in the works. When Trump was asked about it, he went into his usual mode of bullshitting on something where he has no real plan: he was “thinking about doing that” and “looking at it.”

This is an administration that has set a standard of constant consolidation of power and punishment of enemies. A month in, the Postal Service trial balloon and quick cleanup shows it has run out of ideas. But the real question about Trump’s second term was always whether he would bully the country into an effective monarchy, or fall prey to the laws of political gravity.

I’m taking a pundit risk by saying that we now have that answer, after one month in office: Trump’s cooked.

His failure has followed the usual direction of political overreach. Brave dissidents from the political opposition, corporate America, or his own coalition didn’t suddenly rise to the challenge. It started from the bottom up, as the governed gradually but definitively withdrew their consent, giving space for those we somehow call “leaders” to distance themselves.

This doesn’t mean that the subsequent three years and eleven months will be a garden of earthly delights. Terrible things are going to happen. Good people will be persecuted and bad people elevated pretty much every day for the next 1,400 or so. But when Trump disgracefully walks out of Washington in 2029, I’m far more inclined to believe that we will have a government to return to.

THE THING ABOUT POPULISM IS you have to be popular. The moment you lose touch with the public mood, you lose the ability to set your agenda without friction. I wrote on Valentine’s Day about the big warning sign in consumer sentiment, the unanchored inflation expectations that keep resetting higher. Trump has set himself up as the only person in the government who matters, so every national problem falls on his head. Since he’s done nothing to address those inflation concerns, voters are already starting to assign blame.

Four polls showed measurable drops in his approval rating in the last week, putting him in the lowest position for a president one month after an inauguration since … Donald Trump, in 2017. A Reuters poll found the percentage of the public thinking the country’s on the wrong track rose ten points in a month, and only 32 percent approved of Trump on inflation. His economic approval ratings are lower than at any point in his first term.

When every headline out of Washington is about Elon Musk (who is also increasingly unpopular) firing workers and dismantling agencies and going after DEI programs and taking over IT systems for obscure reasons, it’s no wonder people see the president as focused on the wrong issues. Americans believe Trump has overstepped his authority, but if they were seeing lower prices as a result they probably wouldn’t care, sadly. The disconnect matters more than the lawlessness.

But as the economy drifts toward a combination of higher unemployment and higher inflation last seen in the presidency of the late Jimmy Carter, Trump will find it harder to simply sweep in and take power. A town hall held by Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) last week, in a district that went for Trump 60-38, was a disaster, with angry constituents demanding that he stand up for them and not let Trump control the federal budget and cut services for the needy. Other deep-red districts have seen similar dynamics. In rural eastern Oregon, at a town hall held by Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-OR) in a county that went 68 percent for Trump, the crowd shouted, “Tax Elon,” “Tax the wealthy,” “Tax the rich,” and “Tax the billionaires.” In Oklahoma, constituents demanded that Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK), who won in November 60-34, put Musk under oath. In Wisconsin, Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) won by a similar number; at a town hall near Oshkosh, he faced a parade of boos and shouts, as did fellow Wisconsinite Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI).

For weeks, we’ve seen Republicans effectively falling mute at the actions of the president. All it took was a drop in polling support and some angry town halls to flip that. Here’s Rep. Troy Balderson (R-OH) calling Trump’s executive orders “out of control” and stating that Congress must decide whether federal agencies live or die. His district went Trump, 66-33. Here’s freshman Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-PA) saying he’ll never take away the benefits his neighbors rely on, including Medicaid. Here’s Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho, of all places, opposing the mass firing that hit the National Park Service rather hard.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) spoke publicly on the Senate floor and was among several Republicans taking shots at Trump’s claims about Ukraine being the aggressor in its war with Russia. That kind of public repudiation is new and entirely due to Trump’s collapsing favorability. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) furrowing her brow and expressing concern is a perennial, but saying that Trump violated the Constitution by engaging in impoundment is something new for her. Even Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) had to grudgingly admit that it was up to Congress to sanction all the DOGE spending cuts, even if he liked what they were doing.

All that is on top of the usual tensions within the executive branch hierarchies, particularly with respect to Musk, who is angering cabinet officials and Trump’s inner circle. Republican lawmakers are focusing on Musk too, which would make it easier for Trump to respond to a turn in fortunes by jettisoning him. But Trump’s the one who made all the promises about improving voters’ lives, and he would never fire himself.

The biggest example of the change in mood in the country may be happening at Paramount (which owns CBS). It looked almost certain a month ago that the studio would follow what Disney, Facebook, and X have done by settling frivolous lawsuits with Trump. Paramount’s is about a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris that Trump absurdly claims was deceptively edited to try to cost him the election. The studio is finalizing a sale to Skydance and needs federal approval, which was thought to be the reason it would settle as a gift to the president. But that settlement appears far away now, and Paramount has fought back, including by pursuing a trial where it could obtain Trump’s personal financial information in discovery. That does not happen if Trump is riding high among the public; a diminished figure is easier to rebuke.

None of this will get federal regulators to enforce white-collar crime again. We’re in for an orgy of deregulation, and the tax cut fight still will likely work out well for billionaires, with at least some vulnerable folks paying the price. And in foreign policy, presidents have more of a free hand. Saying that Trump’s coup failed doesn’t change this decidedly dim outlook.

Click on the link for more

Unfortunately this article bases its conclusions off of a false premise. The coup hasn’t failed because trumps approval is low or because of the majority of the country no longer agrees with him.

Do the majority of North Koreans or Iranians agree with their respective leaders? What about in Russia?

All that matters is that you have select people in positions of power where they can help you maintain and consolidate your power. And Trump has that from congress to the courts.

His power in the courts is the most dangerous as it is the one that will be the slowest/most difficult to correct and decisions his courts make can work to prolong his position of power in the executive branch/legislature.

I would argue that your stance is based off of a false premise.

N. Korea and Iran started from a decidedly different political system and culture. There exists a legacy in our country of over 200 years of “democratic/republic freedom.” The masses will not acquiesce that freedom willingly, for the most part.

Yes, Trump has installed his lackeys in key positions, but when the public begins to uprise, will everyone fall in line. When he turns to the FBI, Patel has his back, but what about the rank and file? Trump can ask for military intervention, and Hegseth will bow down, but will his underlings? If Trump dares to bring aggressive police/military action against Americans, he will lose all but his most ardent sycophants.

The courts can help him with laws, but when enough of the public has had enough, it won’t be enough. The judicial system takes time. He can invoke executive authority, but who will follow if he has lost too many who had once backed him?

I believe this “coup” ends either with the collapse of this administration, or violence, unfortunately.

[China]

It will take time, but Trump and his administration seem hell bent on pissing off as many people as possible. When the pharmaceutical industry becomes affected, I'm sure their powerful lobby will have something to say.

Trump Administration Stalls Scientific Research Despite Court Ruling

The Trump administration has blocked key parts of the federal government’s apparatus for funding biomedical research, effectively halting progress on much of the country’s future work on illnesses like cancer and addiction despite a federal judge’s order to release grant money.

The blockage, outlined in internal government memos, stems from an order forbidding health officials from giving public notice of upcoming grant review meetings. Those notices are an obscure but necessary cog in the grant-making machinery that delivers some $47 billion annually to research on Alzheimer’s, heart disease and other ailments.

The procedural holdup, which emails from N.I.H. officials described as indefinite, has had far-reaching consequences. Scores of grant review panels were canceled this week, creating a gap in funding from the National Institutes of Health. Together with other lapses and proposed changes in N.I.H. funding early in the Trump administration, the delays have deepened what scientists are calling a crisis in American biomedical research.

Columbia University’s medical school has paused hiring and spending in response to funding shortfalls. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology froze the hiring of nonfaculty employees. Vanderbilt University is reassessing graduate student admissions. And lab leaders said in interviews that they were contemplating and, in some cases, making job cuts as grant applications languished.

For the N.I.H., the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research, the ban on announcing grant review meetings has effectively paused the vetting and approval of future research projects. Government advisers and scientists said that amounted to an effort to circumvent a federal judge’s temporary order that the White House stop blocking the release of billions of dollars in federal grants and loans across the Trump administration.

“The new administration has, both in broad strokes and in rather backroom bureaucratic ways, stopped the processes by which the N.I.H. funds biomedical research in the nation,” said Vaughn Cooper, a microbiologist at the University of Pittsburgh.

He had been planning to study urinary tract infections in people with long-term catheters, a project that expert reviewers gave a favorable score in initial vetting four months ago. But a higher-level review meeting to advance his research and other proposals has now been canceled, putting his work on hold.

An N.I.H. official wrote in an email in Feb. 7 reviewed by The New York Times that the ban on announcing grant review meetings was in effect “indefinitely” and “came from the H.H.S. level,” a reference to the Department of Health and Human Services, which is now being led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The breakdown in the grant review process seemed to reflect a broader Trump administration strategy of exploiting loopholes to effectively keep much of the president’s blanket spending freezes in place, despite judicial orders to keep taxpayer dollars flowing.

The lapse in grant-making may augur additional upheaval at the N.I.H., which helps drive the pharmaceutical and biotech industries with its spending and generates tens of billions of dollars in additional annual economic activity each year.

In an internal email late Friday morning, Dr. Matthew Memoli, the agency’s acting director, warned employees of “further changes ahead” and said it would have “many opportunities to demonstrate our value to Secretary Kennedy in the coming weeks and months.”

For American research labs, which in many cases pay their employees with N.I.H. grants, lapses in funding can quickly push scientists to dismantle the infrastructure and work force that support lines of experimentation.

Katie Witkiewitz, who studies treatments for substance use disorders at the University of New Mexico, said that expected gaps in funding already meant that she would have to let go of one employee in the coming months.

“The N.I.H. just seems to be frozen,” she said. “The people on the ground doing the work of the science are going to be the first to go, and that devastation may happen with just a delay of funding.”

The stoppages have touched nearly every area of science. This week alone, the N.I.H. had scheduled some 47 meetings for handpicked experts in various fields to weigh grant applications, the first stage of a lengthy review process. But 42 of those meetings were canceled, stalling proposals to study pancreatic cancer, addiction, brain injuries and child health.

Higher-level review panels charged with deciding whether to recommend projects have also been canceled in recent weeks. Under a 1972 law, neither type of review meeting is allowed to occur without being announced on The Federal Register, a government publication. Such notices, which typically need to be published at least 15 days in advance, have not been posted on the register since Jan. 21, the day after President Trump’s inauguration.

Click on the link for the full article

[mcsluggo]

Democrat party is in disarray

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/12/opin ... risis.html

You could have elected a sane woman but instead chose to elect the same guy who led a riot 4 years ago. I mean, losing to that guy should be inexcusable.

GOP voting base couldve nominated DeSantis or Haley. But the base wants the trolling and absolutely thinks the 2020 election was stolen, so dont carw about 1/6.

Biden was so stupud with the additional covid spending, not realizing that, on top of the 2020 spending, thered be a significant inflationary impact. And Im not sure whether it was his own ego or personal mistrust of Harris that wouldnt allow him to step down after the 22 midterms.

that is not what caused the inflation.
https://www.nber.org/digest/20239/unpac ... flation-us