Trump / Musk (other than DOGE)

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“… Three of the sources said the DOGE personnel wanted to gain access to security systems and personnel files. Two of those sources said also they wanted access to classified information.

USAID Director of Security John Voorhees and his deputy are the latest officials who have been put on leave amid fears that the agency is being intentionally dismantled by the Trump administration. Rumors are swirling that President Donald Trump intends to sign an executive order to fold USAID into the US State Department – a move that Democratic lawmakers say is illegal.

… Around 60 senior USAID staff were put on leave last week on accusations of attempting to circumvent the executive order on foreign aid. Another senior official was put on leave for trying to reverse that move after finding no evidence of wrongdoing.

One source said the entire USAID public affairs office was put on leave and locked out of their systems.“

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Gee - I wonder why Trump Tariffs on Chyna are only 10% vs. 25% to Mexico and Canada.

Rightly, Canada and Mexico are hitting the US with counter tariffs which will cost Americans jobs in addition of the Trumpflation of the tariffs themselves.
 
nycfan said:
FLASHBACK:



“… “We have to reduce spending to live within our means. And that necessarily involves some temporary hardship, but it will ensure long-term prosperity,” Musk stated in the call, fully endorsing the strain Trump’s policies would place on Americans.

Musk’s words make it clear that the disruption is not an unintended side effect but an accepted—if not desired—outcome.

The billionaire went further by responding to an X (formerly Twitter) user who anticipated a market downturn if Trump’s aggressive policies, including mass deportations and extreme deficit cuts, were enacted. The user predicted that with Trump and Musk in charge, the U.S. economy—dependent on debt and vulnerable to asset bubbles—would face a severe reaction before stabilizing under the intended austerity. Musk’s response was a simple acknowledgment: “Sounds about right.” …”

——

We will see if Americans are willing to suffer (for how long? a few years(?)) and embrace austerity to live within the country’s means in an age of extraordinary wealth disparity that means most Americans will experience billionaire deployed austerity quite differently from the billionaires themselves.
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We must SUFFER MORE for our Billionaire Overlords. For they are mighty and just!
 
lawtig02 said:
The traditional media has basically collapsed now. They have no idea what to do with this new world. Dems will have to find a messaging strategy that does not include them.
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To be fair, the people that need to hear what the traditional media have to say are too busy listening to Joe Rogan interview a guy who does nothing but eat raw meat and hit on HS girls because they haven’t yet developed a sense of “being able to do better.”
 
heelinhell said:
"China and Russia have increased their footholds in the region over the past decade, financing major infrastructure projects including deep water ports, and providing more security partnerships for authoritarian states such as Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela."

makings of a Caribbean Treaty Organization ( CTO ) ?
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I’m sure a lot of the older people in the region are asking what happened to FDR’s Good Neighbor Policy of the ‘30’s and ‘40’s.
 
nycfan said:
“WILL THERE BE PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!). … IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID.”

DJT 2/2/25

A bit different from his campaign rhetoric.
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This whole situation and the ascension of Musk as Trump’s archangel brought back to me threads of a Zora Neale Hurst quote, which I looked up to make sure I remembered it correctly (which mostly I did for the first two sentences, the rest was more a vague paraphrase in my memory):

“All gods who receive homage are cruel.

All gods dispense suffering without reason.

Otherwise they would not be worshipped.

Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom.

Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.”

— Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurst (1937)
 
lawtig02 said:
It also makes sense in terms of shortening our supply chains, and minimizing reliance on China for basic products and services. But the fluffing of the Fuhrer makes it hard to take the good parts seriously.
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What does the State department have to do with supply chains? The problem isn't that Rubio fluffs the Fuhrer. The problem is that Rubio has always been a rube and a completely unserious person from the outset. And he knows jack shit about foreign policy.

Rubio's op-ed didn't contain any good ideas in it -- not that I saw. It contained some acceptable aspirational language with no basis in reality.
 
www.nytimes.com

Security Official at Aid Agency Put on Leave After Denying Access to Musk Team

Workers at the U.S. Agency for International Development are bracing for a loss of its independent status and sweeping layoffs as President Trump continues slashing foreign aid.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

The top security official at the U.S. Agency for International Development was put on administrative leave on Saturday night after refusing to give representatives of Elon Musk access to internal systems, according to three U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter.

John Voorhees, U.S.A.I.D.’s director of security, is the latest senior official at the agency to be put on administrative leave. Last week, Trump administration appointees suspended about 60 senior officials and fired hundreds of contractors. There has been talk among current and former agency employees and lawmakers that the agency could be subsumed within the State Department in a drastically reduced form.

The deputy security official working under Mr. Voorhees was also put on leave, one U.S. official said.

U.S.A.I.D., which is funded by Congress and takes some guidance from the State Department, has otherwise operated independently. Mr. Voorhees could not immediately be reached for comment.

“USAID is a criminal organization,” Mr. Musk wrote on Sunday in a social media post that many aid workers saw as confirmation the agency would soon be absorbed into the State Department and that some viewed as a potential threat to their personal safety. “Time for it to die.”
 
“USAID is a criminal organization,” Mr. Musk wrote on Sunday in a social media post‘

WTF?
 
A brief and elementary economics lesson courtesy of The Atlantic:


The Price America Will Pay for Trump’s Tariffs


The most popular beer in America is Modelo Especial, brewed in Mexico. Impose a 25 percent tariff on Modelo and sales will slide. So, too, will exports of the American barley that goes into Mexican beer. Mexico buys three-quarters of U.S. barley exports, almost all for brewing.

Trump surrogates may promise you that by driving Mexican beer off of grocery shelves, Trump’s tariffs will increase sales of U.S. barley to U.S. brewers. That promise may even be substantially true. But that offer has fine print that barley growers will notice.

Barley growers don’t care only about how much barley they sell. They care about the price at which they sell it.

A tariff raises the price of both every imported good and every good that competes with imports.

If the price of Modelo is pushed up, the price of American-brewed beer will rise as well. American beermakers are not operating a charity. The tariff on Modelo allows them to both increase their market share at Modelo’s expense and raise their prices enough to increase their margins at the consumers’ expense.

But American consumers do not have infinite amounts of money. If they are paying more for beer, they have to make savings elsewhere. The result—and economists will prove this to you all day with facts and figures—is that prices in exporting sectors such as barley, and agriculture generally, will decline in proportion as prices in the importing sectors rise.

Trump tariffs will be paid in the form of higher prices for imports and their substitutes, and lower profits and wages for everyone who works in export industries.
 
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