This week, President-elect Donald Trump told reporters that "tariff" is "the most beautiful word in the dictionary" and claimed that tariffs would "make our country rich."
All of that is standard Trump rhetoric on trade, but it also represents a stunning about-face for the party he leads, especially when you look at how past presidential nominees talked about trade.
In 1999, while running for president, George W. Bush framed free trade as a moral good: "In order to promote the peace, I believe we ought to be a free-trading nation in a free-trading world," he said at a primary debate, "because free trade brings markets, and markets bring hope and prosperity."
In 2007, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., proclaimed himself "the biggest free marketer and free trader that you will ever see."
In 2011, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney likewise championed free trade, albeit with a few more reservations.
"I love free trade. I want to open markets to free trade, but I will crack down on cheaters like China," he said at a debate.
But Trump blew up that Republican orthodoxy, twice winning the presidency while telling voters to be skeptical of international trade. Relatedly, he proposed massive new barriers to trade. During his most recent presidential campaign, he floated 60% tariffs on Chinese goods, plus blanket 20% tariffs on all other goods coming into the United States. Since winning the presidency, he has additionally promised 25% tariffs on products from Mexico and Canada.
How the white house tricked Democrats into believing Biden was mentally fit for 4 years. Really, democrats just believe whatever their party tells them even if that means disbelieving what they see with their own eyes. https://www.wsj.com/politics/biden-white-house-age-function-diminished-3906a839 How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden in Charge Aides kept meetings short and controlled access, top advisers acted as go-betweens and public interactions became more scripted. The administration denied Biden has declined.
During the 2020 presidential primary, Jill Biden campaigned so extensively across Iowa that she held events in more counties than her husband—a fact her press secretary at the time, Michael LaRosa, touted to a local reporter. His superior in the Biden campaign quickly chided him. As the three rode in a minivan through the state’s cornfields, Anthony Bernal, then a deputy campaign manager and chief of staff to Jill Biden, pressed LaRosa to contact the reporter again and play down any comparison in campaign appearances between Joe Biden, then 77, and his wife, who is eight years his junior. Her energetic schedule only highlighted her husband’s more plodding pace, LaRosa recalls being told. The message from Biden’s team was clear. “The more you talk her up, the more you make him look bad,” LaRosa said. The small correction foreshadowed how Biden’s closest aides and advisers would manage the limitations of the oldest president in U.S. history during his four years in office.
To adapt the White House around the needs of a diminished leader, they told visitors to keep meetings focused. Interactions with senior Democratics and some cabinet members—including powerful secretaries such as Defense’s Lloyd Austin and Treasury’s Janet Yellen—were infrequent or grew less frequent. Some legislative leaders had a hard time getting the president’s at key moments, including the U.S.’s disastrous pullout from Afghanistan.
https://nypost.com/2024/12/20/us-news/luigi-mangione-stayed-at-same-nyc-prison-as-sean-diddy-combs/ Biden is going to pardon SBF for sending money to the dems and diddy because biden and obongo went to diddy parties. At USP Florence ADMAX, McVeigh and Nichols were housed in what was known as "bomber's row". Ted Kaczynski, Luis Felipe, and Ramzi Yousef were also housed in this cell block. Yousef made frequent, unsuccessful attempts to convert McVeigh to Islam.[87]
A Swedish hip-hop star has been reportedly shot dead in a car park with disturbing footage of the apparent killing emerging online.
According to the BBC, citing several Swedish newspapers, rapper Gaboro was gunned down in a parking garage on Friday night in the city of Norrkoping, southwest of the capital Stockholm.
In the disturbing video spreading across social media platforms, a person carrying a handgun and seemingly wearing a bodycam video could be seen firing multiple shots inside a parking garage, hitting a man as he attempted to run for his life.
The rapper was heard saying “I beg you” before he was shot multiple times.
The rapper – real name Ninos Khouri – was unable to get away from his shooter with police later confirming that a man in his 20s had been found injured at the scene and was later pronounced dead in hospital.
Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet reported that police would not confirm if the video was related to the shooting, but said it will be examined as part of their investigation.
Gaboro is known for obscuring his identity during his performances and music videos by wearing a balaclava and sunglasses to hide his face.
He first burst onto the rap scene in 2022 with the release of his song Browski, which has clocked up 1.6 million views on YouTube to date.
In the last two years since its release, Gaboro’s songs have attracted more than 226,000 monthly Spotify listeners.
His most popular single Harki, released just this year, has been streamed on Spotify more than 11 million times.
President-elect Donald J. Trump is keeping secret the names of the donors who are funding his transition effort, a break from tradition that could make it impossible to see what interest groups, businesses or wealthy people are helping launch his second term.
Mr. Trump has so far declined to sign an agreement with the Biden administration that imposes strict limits on that fund-raising in exchange for up to $7.2 million in federal funds earmarked for the transition. By dodging the agreement, Mr. Trump can raise unlimited amounts of money from unknown donors to pay for the staff, travel and office space involved in preparing to take over the government.
Mr. Trump is the first president-elect to sidestep the restrictions, provoking alarm among ethics experts.
Those seeking to curry favor with the incoming administration now have the opportunity to donate directly to the winning candidate without their names or potential conflicts ever entering the public sphere. And unlike with campaign contributions, foreign nationals are allowed to donate to the transition.
Certain types of cooking oils may be fueling a surge of colon cancers in young Americans, a government-funded study suggests.
Consuming large amounts of seed oils – which include sunflower, canola, corn and grapeseed – has long been linked to inflammation in the body.
But now a study analyzing the tumors of more than 80 patients with colon cancer has found they may also raise the risk of one of the fastest-growing forms of the disease.
Researchers found patients' tumors had high levels of bioactive lipids, microscopic fatty compounds produced when the body breaks down seed oils.
These lipids are believed to be dangerous in two ways - they promote inflammation which helps cancers grow and they prevent the body from fighting the tumors.
The researchers are urging people to swap from seed oils and instead focus on oils with omega-3 fatty acids such as olive and avocado oil.
America's main cancer and heart disease bodies say there is no evidence that moderate amounts of seed oils contribute to those conditions. But there has been a growing movement against them due to studies suggesting they cause inflammation and raise the risk of conditions like heart disease and diabetes.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, President-Elect Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, has stated that Americans are being 'unknowingly poisoned by them.'
The findings come as rates of colon cancer have surged in young Americans.
Diagnoses among people under 50 years old, which are classified as early-onset, are expected to rise by 90 percent in people 20 to 34 years old from 2010 to 2030.
The jealousy bone might appeared to have bitten Elon Musk Wednesday, as he reportedly crashed the widely publicized dinner between President-elect Donald Trump and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago hosted the dinner dinner for the politician and billionaire, but the two didn’t have privacy for long before Musk appeared. According to the New York Times, the X CEO “was not initially expected to be part of the dinner but joined as it was underway.”
Reactions online to the apparent power move were swift and cutting, with late night hosts and social media commentators mocking Musk as “deranged” and “creepy,” among other unflattering conclusions. The tech mogul was dragged up and down, with many saying it seemed like he was worried about his ongoing “bromance” with the president-elect.
“This two-week bromance is going to fall apart more spectacularly than any in history,” journalist and author Seth Abramson wrote on Bluesky. “Elon Musk is so deranged and creepy — and such a clueless stalker — that he actually crashed a private dinner between Donald Trump and Musk rival Jeff Bezos. I can’t imagine how livid that made both Trump and Bezos.”
He continued his post: “What it also confirms is that Musk not only has no boundaries and believes himself Trump’s superior but has no intention of permitting any other plutocrat to squeeze more juice out of Trump than him. Showing up at that dinner uninvited is a power play intended to cow both other oligarchs and Trump.”
Musk’s choice to crash Trump and Bezos’ meal was a dinner bell to the various late night hosts out there, as well. Just about every single one of them had a joke or two to crack at Musk’s expense this week, with Seth Meyer’s warning Trump he got “‘Cable Guy’-ed” – a reference to the 1996 Jim Carrey stalker comedy.
