Recently, an image was posted on Facebook to highlight the beauty of Moscow: Modern skyscrapers towering above a marina with white luxury yachts in the soft glow of the golden hour. However, one crucial detail in the picture is false: The image was not taken in the Russian capital but in Dubai.
The planned order follows years of campaign promises from President Donald Trump to abolish the department -- something he cannot do without congressional approval. read more
U.S. President Donald Trump will speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday, his top trade adviser Peter Navarro told a Politico Live event, as new 10% tariffs on Chinese imports took effect, spurring retaliatory tariffs announced by Beijing. Asked how U.S. consumers and companies should understand the China tariffs, Navarro told Politico: "Let's see what happens with the call today."
It's been a tumultuous weekend for USAID -- the U.S. Agency for International Development. read more
Canadian border cities were left saddened and angered on Sunday over US President Donald Trump's move to impose steep tariffs, with the mayor of Sarnia, Ontario likening the rift to a "failing marriage." read more
And then there is China ...
China's top diplomat heads to Africa as West's attention dwindles
www.reuters.com
... China's top diplomat began his annual New Year tour of Africa on Sunday, maintaining a 35-year-long tradition, to quietly advance Beijing's already sizeable influence across the resource-rich continent as Europe's presence wanes and America's wavers. ...
@#44 ... you mean like when Biden ignored the Supreme Court multiple times? ...
Got links?
Here's one I found ...
Fact Check: Did Biden Ignore Supreme Court Over Student Loan Forgiveness? (July 2024)
www.newsweek.com
... President Joe Biden's plans to introduce multi-billion dollar student loan forgiveness schemes have faced repeated backlash from Republican opponents and rejection from the Supreme Court.
In 2023, the Court ruled against a plan put forward by Biden's administration, estimated to cost $400 billion, that would have cut up to $20,000 for borrowers.
However, according to Republican Ohio Representative Jim Jordan, the Biden administration has forged ahead, despite the Supreme Court's rejection, ignoring its ruling.
A post on X, formerly Twitter, by Rep. Jim Jordan, on July 2, 2024, viewed 575,100 times, said: "President Biden: No one is above the law.
"Also President Biden: Ignore the Supreme Court and watch me illegally forgive student loans."
It's true that the Biden administration has taken steps to reduce payments for citizens with student debt despite a Supreme Court ruling voting against a much wider plan in June 2023.
However, these new plans do not ignore the ruling by the Supreme Court as they are narrower in scope. ...
@#29 ... Only since the 16th century. ...
Yup.
My question is ... is the current Bitcoin fad similar to the Dutch Tulip mania of the 17th century?
Tulip mania
en.wikipedia.org
... Tulip mania (Dutch: tulpenmanie) was a period during the Dutch Golden Age when contract prices for some bulbs of the recently introduced and fashionable tulip reached extraordinarily high levels. The major acceleration started in 1634 and then dramatically collapsed in February 1637. It is generally considered to have been the first recorded speculative bubble or asset bubble in history.[2] ...
My current view of China's approach to Pres trump's self-imposed tariff mess is ...
Pres Xi is nothing less than gleeful.
As countries around the world nw are starting to look at the United States as an unreliable trading partner, the leader of the world's second largest economy is quite willing to step in and help those nations affected by the effects of Pres Trump's tariff whims.
Stated differently, the USMCA treaty that Pres Trump negotiated and he called ...
Remarks by President Trump on the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (2018)
trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov
... It is my great honor to announce that we have successfully completed negotiations on a brand new deal to terminate and replace NAFTA and the NAFTA trade agreements with an incredible new US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, called "USMCA." It, sort of, just works: USMCA. (Applause.)
USMCA. That'll be the name, I guess, that, 99 percent of the time, we'll be hearing: USMCA. It has a good ring to it. ...
So we have negotiated this new agreement based on the principle of fairness and reciprocity. To me, it's the most important word in trade because we've been treated so unfairly by so many nations all over the world. And we're changing that. ...
Yet Pres Trump now seems to denounce that treaty he negotiated with his current actions?
@#1 ... Good luck with investigating 5,000 FBI agents who investigated the criminals. ...
Not just investigating, but resulted in convictions.
Evenhanded Injustice: Jan. 6 Pardons, Commutations & Dismissals
www.lawfaremedia.org
... How the "individual most responsible for what occurred" that day is trying to erase history.
In volume one of Special Counsel Jack Smith's final report, relating to President Donald Trump's attempt to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, Smith wrote that four objectives listed in the Justice Department's Principles of Federal Prosecution influenced his decision to bring the case. One of those was "to promote fair and evenhanded application of the law."
Given that "more than 1,500 people [had] been criminally charged for their roles in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol," he explained, the fact that Trump was "the individual most responsible for what occurred" that day "weighed heavily in favor of charging him." Over the next five pages, Smith provided a sampling of the types of evidence indicating that Trump was, indeed, "the individual most responsible for what occurred" that day: multiple judges' observations at sentencings; defendants' contemporaneous statements on social media or video explaining why they were about to commit, were committing, or had committed their crimes; Trump's language at the Ellipse and the crowd's response to it; formal defenses invoked by rioters' defense counsel, arguing that Trump had authorized or induced their clients' crimes; defense attorney arguments in summations, blaming Trump for the violence; and pleas for leniency by defendants or their family members at sentencing, averring that the defendant had believed he or she was serving Trump. ...
A third, Judge Paul Friedman, wrote more understatedly:
In each of the cases, law enforcement diligently investigated the facts. The prosecutors . . . conscientiously presented the evidence to support the convictions " including powerful testimony from law enforcement officers and other witnesses, as well as hundreds of hours of shocking videos of assaults on the Capitol and those trying to protect it. In each case, either a judge or jury evaluated the evidence presented through the crucible of direct and cross-examination. Judges methodically applied the law to the facts or instructed juries to do so. The voluminous records created in these cases will forever reflect that in the tumultuous time following the events of January 6, 2021, this Court was at all times a place of law and fact.
That seems to be what Pres Trump, and his adorers, want to erase.
@#3 ... Blinked?
He got his ass handed to him.
But he is now taking a victory lap and that is all that matters. ...
Yeah, I noticed that also.
Pres Trump is taking a victory lap when Canada and Mexico have handed his most ample derriere back to him.
But this is only phase one.
In a month, I suspect we will be discussing this topic again.
Will Pres Trump back down once again, tail between his legs, a month from now?
At this point, I have to ask, is Pres Trump trying to turn his policies with other countries into a serial drama/comedy to do little more than draw attention to himself?
I'm thinking of the daytime soap operas.