kscarbel2

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“First of all, that report I saw was total fake news. We said that's going to take about six months and that's what Elon signed up for, but of course he's going to continue to be an advisor. The work of DOGE is not even close to done, the work of Elon is not even close to done. DOGE has got a lot of work to do, and that work is going to continue after Elon leaves but fundamentally Elon is going to remain a friend and advisor of both me and the president and he's done a lot of good things.” Vice President JD Vance

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent advises other countries to “Sit back, take a deep breath, don't immediately retaliate. Let's see where this goes, because if you retaliate, that's how we get escalation. Doing anything rash would be unwise. A trade war depends on the country. But remember that the history of trade is we are the deficit country. The deficit country has an advantage. They are the surplus countries. The surplus countries traditionally, always lose any kind of trade escalation. As a student of economic history or a professor of economic history, I'd advise against trying to get revenge.”

“So for 40 years, America has been the piggy bank of the world. We absorb all of the ridiculous trade practices and economic practices of friend and foe alike. For the first time in probably 40 years, we have an American president who’s saying, ‘No more,’ that it’s not going to work, that he’s not going to allow America to be taken advantage of anymore. This decision is going to cause incredible benefits for American workers. You’ve already seen a number of American manufacturers and a number of foreign manufacturers who are saying they’re going to build or expand plants in America. That means more workers with good middle-class jobs. That means more self-sufficiency in the United States of America. Again, it can’t happen unless you have a president who fights back against these ridiculous trade practices. Finally, we have a president who’s doing exactly that.” “It’s funny. You have countries who threaten to retaliate against President Trump standing up for American workers. And my response is, well, if tariffs are so terrible, then isn’t them raising their tariffs good for us? Because these people always say that any tariffs are bad. Well, all these other countries have applied tariffs to the United States and non-tariff barriers to the United States for a generation. If it was so terrible, why do these countries keep on doing it? If it’s so terrible, why are these countries calling us, lobbying us, begging us not to do this thing? It just doesn’t make any sense. What we know from experience is that a lot of countries have gotten rich by using the United States as a piggy bank. We know that President Trump stopping this makes these countries nervous, and the reason it makes them nervous is because they know what common sense tells us, which is that when they impose tariffs on us, it’s bad for American workers, and when we fight back, it’s good for American workers.” “Yeah, in a word, it’s nationalism. In our foreign policy and our economic policy, we have a president who’s going to put the interests of Americans first and that means in our economic policy, we’re going to fight back against ridiculous trade practices. In our foreign policy, we’re going to stop starting stupid wars. But we’re also going to ensure that America’s enemies respect America’s national interests and that means we need access to critical resources. That means that we need our allies and ourselves to have missile security, to have national security, to make our own weapons if God forbid a war would start. And so, these things are often connected. Economic security is connected to national security because, if God forbid, we had to go to war, we want our troops to go to war with the best equipment and equipment that’s made in the United States of America. The president mentioned this in his remarks today: that we’re in a situation where if we went to war against a country that made our pharmaceuticals, our kids wouldn’t have access to antibiotics. So this basic understanding of President Trump’s, which I think is very much common sense and I think most Americans get, is that we need to have more self-sufficiency. We need to make more of our own stuff. We need a foreign policy that puts the interest of our citizens first, and we need an economic policy that does the same.” Vice President JD Vance

A federal judge, born in Mexico and appointed by Biden, has blocked President Trump from defunding free lawyers for Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs). In February, the Trump administration paused funding for the Acacia Center for Justice — a non-governmental organization (NGO) that provides free lawyers to tens of thousands of UACs hoping to stay in the United States using millions in American taxpayer dollars. During the Biden administration, the Acacia Center for Justice secured $200 million in federal contracts to provide lawyers to UACs. Late on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez Olguin, who was born in Mexico City and appointed by Biden, became the latest federal judge to block President Trump from carrying out his “America First” agenda.

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It looks like the North American Volvo that it is.

President Trump says Elon Musk is resigning from his government role. In my mind, this is a tragedy. The establishment won this battle.

According to senior Israeli political, military and diplomatic sources, the U.S. and Israel are preparing to launch a strike on Iran to eradicate the its nuclear weapons program. A week ago, a trio of B2 stealth bombers, accompanied by long-range refueling assets, were dispatched to Diego Garcia, bringing the number of B2 bombers there to seven. The B2s would presumably deploy GBU-57s' which can penetrate Iran's hardened nuclear shelters. https://www.twz.com/air/signs-u-s-massing-b-2-spirit-bombers-in-diego-garcia

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/04/01/nolte-man-arrested-for-tossing-nails-and-screws-in-driveways-of-trump-supporters/ Here’s my theory… Older Americans who haven’t quite grasped streaming, social media, and podcasts are still being brainwashed by a legacy media that lies and lies and lies. The media tell them Musk is a threat to democracy, a threat to their Social Security payments, and then the media either downplay or attempt to justify the violence aimed at Musk and his customers. Eventually, CNN or MSNBC can warp a person into believing it is virtuous to scratch a swastika on the hood of a Tesla. My dad is 86. Talking to him these days is like talking to Rachel Maddow, only her voice is huskier.

President Trump lauded the passage of an amendment in Wisconsin on Tuesday that will enshrine voter ID into the state constitution. “Voter I.D. just approved in Wisconsin election. Democrats fought hard against this, presumably so they can cheat. This is a big win for Republicans, maybe the biggest win of the night. It should allow us to win Wisconsin, like I just did in the presidential election, for many years to come.” President Trump

Republican Jimmy Patronis, a mainstay in Tallahassee who rose to the statewide post of chief financial officer, is headed to Congress to replace Matt Gaetz. He defeated Democrat Gay Valimont in a special election held after Gaetz resigned late last year. Republican Florida state Sen. Randy Fine won the special election for Florida’s 6th Congressional District.

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Vietnam has announced import tariff cuts ahead of the entry into effect of President Trump’s tariffs. Imports that will see reduced import levies include liquefied natural gas, cars, ethanol, wood products, and various foodstuffs. For LNG, the import tariff rate would be reduced from 5% to 2%. The tariff on imported cars would be reduced from 64% to 32% (which is no good.....must be reduced to 2.5%). Ethanol tariffs would be reduced from 10% to 5%. Vietnam has the third-highest trade surplus with the United States, at $123.5 billion as of last year, right behind Canada and China in terms of trade imbalance from the U.S. perspective.

I think it's important to project a clear plan, and I'm not seeing that. Americans are owed that. First, he said reciprocal tariffs. I'm 100% on board with that. We charge a 2.5% levy on light vehicles imported from the EU. They charge a 10% levy on U.S. imported light vehicles. With a reciprocal tariff scheme, we raise our levy from 2.5% to 10%. Excellent....done deal. Reciprocal is the epitome of a level playing field. But now he wants to enact a 25% import levy on all imported light vehicles. Now it all becomes murky, what with the lack of any detailed explanation. When did they shift gears? Why? Allegedly he is ignoring the level-headed thoughts of JD Vance. Suzie Wiles and Scott Bessent, and instead listening to alleged "yes man" Lutnick, and unproven Navarro. It was the US companies who sought to offshore, not the countries they went to. NAFTA.....what those American CEOs, Bill Clinton and supportive members of congress orchestrated was criminal.

https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2025/03/31/breitbart-business-digest-u-s-auto-stocks-slide-and-prove-that-tariff-critics-are-wrong/

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Speaking at a conference alongside his longtime friend Antonio Gracias, CEO of Valor Equity Partners, Musk said DOGE uncovered some eye-opening numbers regarding social security in 2024. “We started at the top of the system. Mapping the whole system of social security to understand where all the fraud was. There’s a lot of great people there that showed us a lot of waste, so that came with a big list of stuff. But this is what jumped out at us. In 2021, you see 270,000 people; goes all the way to 2.1 million in 2024. These are non-citizens that are getting social security numbers,” says Antonio Gracias As to how 2.1 million non-citizens received social security numbers in 2024, Gracias said the Biden administration had a policy that allowed migrants to enter the country and then register social security. “When you come in the country, if you’re illegal, there’s a couple of ways to come in. You can come in through a port of entry and you can tell them you’re afraid and they’ll give you an asylum case, you’ll get an interview, then you get in. That’s one way to do it. Another way to do it is to just go to the border … walk up to a border patrol officer and you tell them you want to come in.” “They have a couple of choices. They can charge you with a misdemeanor or a felony under 1325. Or they can make it an administrative offense. Like a parking ticket basically. They were told to do that. Make it an administrative offense under the last administration. You could walk across the border, they could release you on your own recognizance, and they give you a notice to appear at a judge. The wait time on judges are averaged six years … There’s only 700 [judges] and this is 5.5 million people.” “Once you’re in the country and you got an asylum through one of these pathways, you can apply for a work document. You file a 765, you get this form called a 766, and then the social security administration automatically sends you in the mail a social security number. No interview. No ID.”