Politics Random, Random

[skatingfan]

BREAKING: Ontario Premier Doug Ford threatens to cut off fuel to the United States if Trump tariffs Canada.

"We need to be ready to fight [on] January the 20th."

"We will go to the extent of cutting off their energy, going down to Michigan, going down to New York State and over to Wisconsin."

"I don't want this to happen, but my number one job is to protect Ontario, Ontarians and Canadians as a whole since we're the largest province."

"Let's see what happens as we move forward. But we'll use every tool in our toolbox, including cutting them off energy that we're sending down there."

Not fuel - Ontario doesn't have oil & gas production - we're talking about electricity.

[ti-amie]

Kyle Griffin‬ ‪@kylegriffin1.bsky.social‬

Sens. Dick Durbin and Sheldon Whitehouse are demanding any correspondence between Trump's prospective nominees and longtime adviser Boris Epshteyn be disclosed after it was revealed Epshteyn was requesting money from outsiders in exchange for potential appointments. www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-dem ... ppointees/

[ponchi101]

Because, of course, Tiny et al are shaking in their boots at these requests.

[ti-amie]

[ponchi101]

He didn't invent them, but has been very successful at bringing their values up.
And the value of X cannot be measured in terms of $$$. It is measured in terms of political and social power. So what if he has lost a few billion dollars after he bought it? It served him to be the guy that manipulates the president of the USA. That makes it immensely valuable.

[ti-amie]

Trump pushes return to office for federal workers, threatens more media lawsuits

Donald Trump, during a lengthy, wide-ranging news conference in Florida on Monday, threatened to dismiss federal employees working from home who don’t return to the office, promised more lawsuits against the media, defended his embattled defense secretary pick, said he would consider a pardon for New York Mayor Eric Adams and said he has a “warm spot” in his heart for TikTok, the social media app that faces a U.S. ban. At the outset of the news conference, Trump appeared with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son to announce the Japanese firm’s major investment plans in the United States.

Full story

By Marianne LeVine and Hannah Knowles

PALM BEACH, Fla. — President-elect Donald Trump, in a sweeping 70-minute news conference from his Florida home, signaled an abrupt shift from the Biden presidency in both substance and style, threatening to fire federal workers who do not return to the office and confirming that he is “looking at” privatizing the U.S. Postal Service.

(...)

“One of the big differences between the first term — in the first term everybody was fighting me,” he said. “In this term, everybody wants to be my friend.”

(...)

He criticized the recent move by outgoing Biden administration political appointees at the Social Security Administration to allow thousands of employees to continue working from home through 2029, for example. Trump said he would go to court to stop the arrangement and vowed that “if people don’t come back to work, come back into the office, they’re going to be dismissed,” previewing a return-to-work mandate he hopes to issue to much of the 2.3 million-person federal workforce early next year.

(...)

Trump also tamped down speculation that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) would appoint the president-elect’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, to replace Rubio, who has been chosen as secretary of state, suggesting he did not expect the governor to do so.

“Ron’s going to have to make that decision, and he’ll make the right decision,” Trump said. “I also know that Lara’s got so many other things.”

Trump said he would consider pardoning embattled New York Mayor Eric Adams, who was charged in September with bribery, wire fraud and seeking illegal campaign donations. He alleged that Adams was “treated pretty unfairly” and suggested, without evidence, that the indictment was connected to Adams’s support for immigration restrictions.

(...)

Trump said he planned to file a “major lawsuit” against the Des Moines Register, which published a poll from Ann Selzer days before the election that showed Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump in Iowa.

“I have to do it. It costs a lot of money to do it,” he said. “But we have to straighten out the press. Our press is very corrupt — almost as corrupt as our elections.”

Although Selzer’s poll diverged significantly from the final result, she has been a highly respected pollster for decades. She has said the poll was conducted to the best of her ability. Trump provided no evidence of wrongdoing by Selzer or the Register.

Trump has a history of threatening lawsuits — against defendants as varied as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and an anti-Trump T-shirt company — that he does not ultimately file.

He said he was happy with some of the recent coverage of the executives who have courted him. “The press has covered that fairly, actually, for a change,” he said.

On foreign policy, Trump reiterated his desire to take a sharply different approach than Biden has toward Ukraine and the Middle East. The president-elect blasted Biden’s recent decision to authorize Ukraine to use a long-range American weapon for strikes inside Russia.

“I thought it was a very stupid thing to do,” Trump said, adding that he might reverse the decision.

Trump has been deeply skeptical of U.S. involvement in Ukraine, privately saying he could end the war by pressuring Kyiv to give up some territory, people familiar with the matter previously told The Washington Post.

“It’s a tough one, it’s a nasty one,” Trump said of the war in Ukraine on Monday. He said “it’s got to stop.” He declined to say if he had spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin since his election — as The Post reported — but said he would be speaking with both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

He said he did not invite Zelensky to his inauguration, despite reports that he extended offers to other world leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping. But if Zelensky wanted to come, Trump said, “I’d like to have him.”

“I spoke to over 100 countries,” Trump remarked. “You wouldn’t believe how many countries there are.”

On the other conflict that has consumed much of the Biden presidency, the war in the Middle East, Trump said his call last weekend with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “very good,” although he did not go into detail.

He appeared to take preemptive credit for a potential ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas that would include a release of hostages held by the militant group. “You know, I gave warning that if these hostages aren’t back home by that date, all hell’s going to break out,” Trump said, referring to Inauguration Day.

Beyond the substance, the number and variety of Trump’s answers suggested that his second stint in the White House may signal a return to the high-intensity communication style of his first term, when he commented on everything from pop culture to sporting events and would post on social media around-the-clock.

Biden reclaimed the White House while promising that, unlike Trump, Americans would not have to think about him all the time, and he has largely governed that way.

Trump appeared to enjoy the attention on Monday. Even when he briefly stepped away from the microphone to allow his co-transition chair and commerce secretary pick Howard Lutnick to take questions, the president-elect continued to answer them.

Isaac Arnsdorf, Meryl Kornfield, Lisa Rein, Azi Paybarah, Matt Viser and Cat Zakrzewski contributed to this report.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... onference/

[dryrunguy]

The President of my company held a Fireside Chat last week to communicate what we know about the impact of the administration change on our company. (We don't know much.) But employees were given an opportunity to ask questions, and one of the questions asked was if the company would mandate employees to work onsite. The question was a direct result of implications that this was probably going to happen to our federal clients. We're contractors. We're not bound by federal rules.

But it is a concern. Once COVID hit and our headquarters shut down, we had a lot of personnel who struggled with the transition to remote work. (The biggest one was among our women employees whose husband/boyfriend was also working at home and expecting their female partner to continue to work their 8-hour day while also caring for the children, preparing lunch, preparing dinner, etc., with zero support or assistance from the male partner. Needless to say, the separations and divorces were pretty rampant.)

Anyway, a lot of people, including federal staff, have become quite used to the prospect of telecommuting. And if you are a federal worker who has been around for a long time, you haven't forgotten Timothy McVeigh or the longstanding hostility toward the federal workforce. Throw in the violence we've seen in recent years (January 6 and the more recent United CEO shooting), I would be worried if I were still a federal employee.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if we see a fairly large-scale exodus of federal civil servant personnel to the private sector. This would be a huge gift to the incoming administration. And given our status as a federal contractor who is committed to continuing to embrace remote work to accommodate the needs of new talent, we'd be more than happy to make some strategic hires of federal staff to help guide our procurement strategies.

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

[Owendonovan]

Well, I guess I'm a CEO now. Seems to be the best way to get the police services I pay for with my taxes.

[dryrunguy]

The NY Times is reporting the House Ethics Committee plans to release its investigative report on Matt Gaetz after all. Curious...

[ti-amie]

Judd Legum
‪@juddlegum.bsky.social‬
Musk, the wealthiest man in the world, says don't worry about the impact of an extended government shutdown on members of the military, seniors who rely on social security, and other government workers.

They'll be "fine" he says

[ti-amie]

The NY Times is reporting the House Ethics Committee plans to release its investigative report on Matt Gaetz after all. Curious...

‪Joyce White Vance‬ ‪@joycewhitevance.bsky.social‬

No man I ever dated "often sent funds" to me. Nor did I send funds to men I dated. Gaetz is talking about a business proposition here, not a social life.

‪

Ron Filipkowski‬ ‪@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social‬
Interesting statement by Matt Gaetz today.

[ti-amie]

Maxwell Frost
‪@maxwellfrost.bsky.social‬

Follow
And just like that, Republican Unelected Co-President Elon Musk has killed the bill to keep the government from shutting down on Friday. All he had to do was make a few social media posts...

Kevin M. Kruse‬ ‪@kevinmkruse.bsky.social‬
·
“And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of the Gods, as the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.” — Alcuin of York

I must have missed Elmo's name on my ballot...

[ti-amie]

Republicans scrap spending bill, under pressure from Trump and Musk
Unless Congress acts, a government shutdown deadline looms just past midnight Saturday.

Updated
December 18, 2024 at 6:12 p.m. EST13 minutes ago

By Marianna Sotomayor and Jacob Bogage
Republicans scrapped House Speaker Mike Johnson’s bipartisan plan to avert a government shutdown, as President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk joined a broad swath of the House GOP on Wednesday to condemn a compromise bill full of Democratic policy priorities.

The rebuke, which built steadily through the day and culminated with a long written statement from Trump in the late afternoon, has forced Johnson back to the drawing board on a plan to prevent a Christmastime shutdown — and maintain the support of his chaotic conference to be reelected as speaker early next year.

“Your elected representatives have heard you and now the terrible bill is dead,” Musk boasted on X, the social media site he owns, after he spent the day blasting the legislation. “The voice of the people has triumphed!”

Johnson has not outlined a backup plan, and multiple people familiar with the real-time conversations said the next step remains unclear, as leaders would need significant support from both parties — and Trump — to pass a funding extension. If Congress doesn’t extend the deadline, most federal operations would shut down at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, though the effects of a shutdown wouldn’t fully kick in until Monday.

The speed with which the GOP deserted Johnson’s bill on Wednesday underscored how difficult the party’s task could be next year, when Republicans will have control of the Senate and White House, but an even smaller margin in the House. Johnson told Fox News earlier in the day that he had texted Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the co-chair of Trump’s nongovernmental “Department of Government Efficiency,” that any measure needed Democratic support to pass, and that Ramaswamy understood the challenge he faced.

Resolving the impasse by Friday may be even harder. Trump has asked to keep certain measures Johnson supports, such as aid for farmers and natural disaster survivors, but also demanded the House ditch items that Democrats negotiated. He has also requested that Republicans extend the suspension of the debt ceiling, a limit on how much the U.S. government can borrow, which is set to expire early in his new term next year.

On Tuesday evening, Johnson had introduced legislation to extend federal funding until March 14, send $110.4 billion to natural disaster survivors and codify a host of unrelated policy changes. Late in negotiations Johnson added an additional $10 billion of aid for farmers — which opened the door to a slew of unrelated demands by Democrats to ensure the bill could pass the House and Democratic-led Senate. Those included transferring control of the District’s RFK Stadium to Washington, D.C., a pay raise for members of Congress, new regulations for health plan administrators and federal funds to rebuild Baltimore’s collapsed Francis Scott Key bridge.

Republicans grew so upset with the speaker over those provisions — even before Musk started attacking the bill — that a number of lawmakers have already said privately that they would not support him to retain his gavel in the next Congress.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) said he would not vote for Johnson to remain speaker. Two other GOP members, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic, said the question of support was likely moot: Based on defections that had yet to become public, Johnson would probably be forced out of the running before lawmakers would have to make up their minds on Jan. 3, the member said. Conversations about replacing Johnson as speaker had already begun in certain corners of the GOP conference in the last several days, according to multiple Republicans who took part in the discussions.

Other lawmakers echoed those warnings.

“I am hearing from an increasing number of people, both inside and outside the Freedom Caucus, that they they’re not viewing how this was handled favorably,” Rep. Andy Harris (R-Maryland), chair of the pugnacious and ultraconservative Freedom Caucus, told The Washington Post.

Republicans from the party’s far-right and more moderate wings uniformly protested the way Johnson assembled the legislation, and Musk — now a close adviser to Trump — spent Wednesday blasting the legislation, calling it “criminal.” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of that chamber’s GOP leadership team, also weighed in, calling the bill a “cramnibus” on social media, potentially indicating trouble in the Senate even if the measure passes the House.

Johnson had repeatedly pledged he would try to move only a narrow bill that only extended existing funding to avert a government shutdown and distribute the emergency aid for survivors of natural disasters.

Earlier Wednesday, Johnson sought to portray the sprawling bill as unfortunate, but necessary, with Democrats still in control of the White House and Senate.

“By doing this, we are clearing the decks, and we are setting up for Trump to come roaring back with the America First agenda. That’s where we’re going to run with gusto beginning Jan. 3 when we start the new Congress, when Republicans again are in control,” he said on “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday morning.

Johnson told Fox he has heard Musk’s and Ramaswamy’s concerns and texted them that “any bill has to have Democrat votes” given the narrow GOP margins. Johnson said that Ramaswamy understood the speaker is in an “impossible position.”

Two-thirds of House members must vote for the bill for it to pass, because Johnson will bypass the usual process for floor votes. Several Republicans will be closely eyeing the outcome.

“The number of no’s,” one House Republican against the bill said, will indicate to the conference how much opposition Johnson could have to discuss over the break whether the speaker can remain in power.

“Over the majority of members are not happy,” Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Florida) said. “It didn’t have to be this way.”

Johnson won’t be able to rely on Democrats to win the speaker’s election next year. So he’ll need 218 votes from his slim — and now greatly irritated — conference. House Republicans will have a narrower majority next term, beginning the year down one member after former representative Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) resigned, making it nearly impossible for Johnson to lose any support and hold onto his post.

In early 2023, it took 15 rounds of voting for then-Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-California) to become speaker, when Republicans had a five-vote majority. Johnson has just a three-seat majority.

Still, some House Republicans said they’d stick with Johnson. Moderate Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) plans to vote for the funding package and acknowledged that Johnson has had a tough job passing legislation that requires Senate approval, since that body is led by Democrats until Republicans take over in the new year.

“There’s mainly Republican bills in the CR so I feel like he’s doing the best he can, but you got to make some horse trades, because that’s what Congress is,” he said. “But I think he’s doing a great job.”

Mariana Alfaro contributed to this report.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... e-vote-cr/