ewsieg

This might be bull****, with it being Trump, it probably is, but I wouldn't be surprised if this also was an extremely old federal ban which no longer is truly in affect based on how courts have ruled over the last 60-70 years, making this nothing but more paperwork that needs to be checked at the federal level and by eliminating it, it does nothing in terms of reverting back to the pre-civil rights era, but does eliminate worthless paperwork.

Looks like he pulled the same thing they did with the Epstein files. In this case it looks like they just re-released everything they had, making it difficult to find if anything new was included. I'm going to give it a few more days as the media does their deep dive, but yeah, on the surface it definitely looks like another turd.

Probably because they plan on putting us out of our misery soon.

I got sidetracked last week from posting here. Another week that Trump did a lot that would probably define most presidents worst moments for their entire term. The bad: I'm going to go with the Mahmoud Khalil situation. There is a chance Trump reverses course rather than being reversed by the courts (please tell me that's a given....right?). I picked this over the honorable mention of what I would consider is a bribe with the Tesla dealership on the WH lawn issue. While both are clear illegal violations IMO, and arguably easier to tie directly to Trump on the latter, the first one should show that Trump does not care about your rights. He can argue this guy is not a citizen, but if he's going to go after him, there is no reason to believe anyone that disagrees is next. Note: I wish I would have posted this Friday or Saturday, as I can't rule out that his Pardon tweet from today did not influence me that he's ready to go after anyone that disagrees with him publicly.

Bloody hell. I put my phone down around dinner and enjoyed an evening with the family. As everyone is off to bed, I decide to check on shutdown news. Nothing! Twitter, no. CNN, no, Fox, no. Just stuff about a DOJ event with Trump. Time for bourbon I guess.

It's such a muddled mess to me, I can't figure out my own thoughts on this let alone what our elected officials should do. It almost feels like Dems might be falling into a trap if the government shuts down. DOGE will do everything they can to keep furlowed employees from ever coming back. At the same time I've been craving for someone/anyone to take a stand against Trump and not giving into the GOP on the budget is one way to do it.

Note he said open market, not free market. A true open market has no barriers, not just no tariffs, but no regulatory differences, no government subsidies, no special tax or licensing...etc. Additionally I took his statements as tariffs could lead to an open market, not that imposing them makes it an open market. Country A is a capitalist country that makes X, Country B is communist and makes Y with subsidies. Country A determines that subsidies allow B to make Y 4% cheaper due to those, so they agree to a 4% tariff on product Y to make up for the difference as X doesn't have that benefit. We're essentially in a fair market at this point. If Country B could decide to stay here, could decide to subsidize further to get an economic advantage (assuming it doesn't also cause a trade agreement reset) or what people that like tariffs for purposes of exacting change would say, Country B may push their company to be more efficient, eliminating the need for subsidies and pushing Country A to drop the tariff to match them, so now there are no further barriers, hence an open market. All that said, what MAGA doesn't get is that trade is not simply we both build cars and we want open markets to sell them to each other, or we both build phones, etc. It's I'm really good at producing X, you're good at Y, I'll sell you excess X, you sell me excess Y. We all benefit from efficiencies at being really good at something specific.

Honestly, this might be the only coherent reasoning for tariffs I've heard. I'm not saying I agree with everything, but this argument is in part why I wasn't that critical of Trump's first tariff set, which Biden continued as well. But what Collins should have stressed from his comment wasn't that it's a tax, folks that pay any attention already know that. Rather, she should have pointed out the vast difference in how Trump implemented tariffs in his first term, which he says were wildly successful and the erratic nation of these today. And what Trump is doing now compared to what he did his first term

So I don't disagree with you at all, but... What if we're in this Groundhog Day because of your reasons provided, as it's no longer about race but class now.

I don't think I shared this story, I know I was hesitant early on as most people here are Michigan based and I didn't want to cause any trouble. I'm going to keep some details generic to ensure this doesn't come back on anyone. In the last few years, someone I know well was part of an executive team from one hospital organization that was doing a town hall at a hospital they had recently acquired. While one of the whilte male executives was talking, a new DEI director walked through the cafeteria they were in. This exec took a moment to introduce the DEI director and encourage people to reach out to him and participate in DEI activities. He went on to say he had a story to share. He said that after their org first hired a DEI director (another person originally) he went to her and said he wanted to start a white group. She was shocked (and so was the crowd), but he explained that he wanted to be an advocate for DEI and felt without a group for whites, he would not be able to meet with other whites and try to figure out how they could be part of the solution. She went on to explain that he didn't need to be black to attend the group for African Americans or gay to be part of that group. So on and so forth. She promised him that they would be inclusive and he would be not only learn from them, they would be happy to learn from him. So for years, he would attend one of the groups for several months, before moving to another. She encouraged him to share this story, she thought it was a great example of the benefits of DEI. He claimed what he learned was invaluable. Now the person that shared this with me had only been with this organization for a short time and he said he wasn't the only one that gasped when he heard this other exec talking about wanting a white group. But as the story went on, he realized it was a good story. The next day this person logged into work to learn HR wanted to have a meeting with him. 12 people went to HR and said the exec should be fired and everyone one else on the exec team should be reprimanded for not stopping him. Soon it was determined that it was 1 manager and his 11 employees. Some of those employees told HR that the manager said they shouod submit a complaint as it would help ensure if there were layoffs, they would be spared. Plus as the team was more than 50% minority if they were laid off after complaining about a white guy talking about wanting a white group, they would get a settlement. This information was eventually shared with the exec team. While no one got fired, HR forced the exec that shared the story to get on a call with the team and apologize for his hateful comments. And it wasn't even a 'you apologize and it's over'. It was you apologize and we'll see what their reaction is. Eventually nothing further happened. This isn't a horrible story. No one got fired, no one was really even reprimanded outside of a forced apology. But there are a lot of people that have some similar stories and the refusal to accept this on the left is why it's a big deal on the right.

While the Trump Presidency thread goes deep into his daily activities, I figured a summarized version might help point out the good and bad in his presidency. Obviously I suspect there will be a lot more bad, but IMO he has so much bad, that horrible things he does, tend to drown out the really horrible things he's done. So, I plan on weekly putting the good and bad of the last week here. Others are free to do the same. Note: I'm starting this in part because of all the issues i've had with Trump, the one I mention this week truly got my blood boiling and I felt it was drowed out. The good - blank The bad - His decision to stop sharing Russian intel with Ukraine and forcing that change with other Ukraine allies as well. This does not cost money, this was done to punish Ukraine and nothing else. People died as a result as Russia took advantage and hit Kyiv and other areas harder than they have in quite awhile. Their blood is on his hands. Honorable mention on bad - The search on all things 'gay' and other keywords, in an attempt to rewrite history.

And while DEI defenders will point to the 'mission statement' for DEI, most people (or I guess most old white guys and a larger amount of hispanics and AA's apparently too based on the last election) also equate DEI every time they hear about another school attempting to be renamed because Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and even Dianne Feinstein aren't worthy. I get that's not the national dem party doing these things, but the party takes on the actions of its followers. DEI began to take on these local actions and the national party wanted the praise for anything DEI related that it felt put it in a good light, but none of the baggage.

Everyone but the Asians...those guys can f off, amirite?

Because the only portion of her plan that she could enact by herself would have increased the cost of housing (what was it, 25k to every first time home buyer?) Minds well add 25k to the sale price of every house once that is enacted. It would have increased inflation concerns, not lowered them. Eventually it might take the feds to help with some lower priced single family housing, but she had no details on how felt the feds could control that.

Well, good thing she wasn't good candidate then, otherwise she would have been completely blown out of the water. If I was voting based on her 'housing' plan, I probably would have voted for Trump too.

You are correct on Harris, she only ran on 'she's not Trump', which was good enough for me, but not enough. Overall the pendulum swung way left within our electorate on DEI, which folks on both sides recognizing it went too far. That said, the Dem party expressed no concerns and openly endorsed DEI with no faults. They ignored news that identified concerns regarding DEI overload and blew off concerns. And in true political form, the side that recognized the pendulum was way off, used it to their advantage and no longer cares about evening out that pendulum, they are swaying it as far as they can the other way, potentially wiping out many good aspects of DEI. In the end there is always going to be a balance between appeasing the far end of your party and trying to make sure they turn out and vote for you, and also keeping a message out that invites independents to vote for you as well. The GOP, for all the faults of Trump, their far right will vote for him regardless. They don't have the problem the Dem party has with their far left.

I'm sure there are some. But, as we all know, if something goes wrong in your life, it's Obama's fault.

The Dems certainly are not entitled to anyones votes, but they can determine how much effort a group is worth in obtaining. The dems chose to push DEI ideas championed by the far left. I know of countless examples that even my democratic voting friends felt went too far, but the dems felt it was important to court those far left votes that they downplayed any DEI concerns. Do those hard line DEI supporters think we're better off now? So yeah, if climate change is your thing and the Dems aren't doing enough for you, I guess vote MAGA and let's see how that works out for you.

I would prefer a democratic party that focused on class politics instead of identity politics, but i'm also a conservative and i'm hoping for a party that I could really get behind and realize my chance is better with a dem party, not a Trump party.

I don't think you're wrong, but MB isn't either. There is a difference about the far left and the far right in each party. The far right may not think a republican is going far enough, but they will always get in line behind them. The far left will attempt to humiliate and ostracize their person if they aren't doing everything they want. Do most come around and still vote for their democrat, yes, but some abstain, some splinter off to the Stein's of the world, and for the rest that still do vote, they have given every independent out there cannon fodder against the dem they are still voting for. In short, I can understand MB's rant, but it's in part due to the conviction of your far left. While you don't want it hurting you, not sure you want to try and quell that conviction either.

Right after the bolded part is where I put my little jab at Trump. I agreed with many points Trump had against NAFTA, but was upset when he threw that away. All that said, I was one of the few that said the USMCA was a better deal (not amazingly better, but better) I almost feel like he must be trolling his own followers just to see if they will back him over it.

Unfortunately they are doing quite well in connecting to their voters via memes on Twitter.

I would assume DTE also will be affected by natural gas tariffs as well, think that's only 10% though, but would effect every natural gas plant that they, regardless if they get their gas via Canada or not.

Can't speak to their reliance, but I know the St. Clair power plant in Ontario connects to the grid on our side of the St. Clair river.

I'm not very political on Facebook, but I just posted a few days ago that if you are a country that doesn't have nuclear weapons, but have any fear whatsoever from your neighbors, you were be derelict in your duty not to pursue them now. Canada, South Korea, Taiwan, Baltic States, Poland... so on and so forth.