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The Washington Post / December 21, 2016 The radical Islamist sought in the deadly attack on a Berlin Christmas market — a 24-year-old Tunisian migrant — was the subject of a terrorism probe in Germany earlier this year and was not deported even though his asylum bid was rejected. The attacker, identified as Anis Amri, became the subject of a national manhunt after investigators discovered a wallet with his identity documents in the truck used in Monday’s attack that left 12 dead. Meanwhile, a clearer portrait took shape of the suspect, including accusations that he had contact with a prominent ISIS recruiter in Germany. German authorities issued a 100,000 euro ($105,000) reward for information leading to his capture, warning citizens not to approach the 5-foot-8, 165-pound Amri, whom they described as “violent and armed.” His record, however, further deepened the political fallout from Monday’s bloodshed — pointing to flaws in the German deportation system and putting a harsh light on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s humanitarian bid to open the nation’s doors to nearly 1 million asylum seekers last year. Dozens of terrorism suspects have slipped into Germany and neighboring nations posing as migrants. Amri came to Germany last year via Italy, where he had entered in 2012. He applied for German asylum but was rejected in June and later faced deportation. Amri was the subject of a terrorism probe on suspicion of “preparing a serious act of violent subversion,” and he had known links to Islamist extremists. Why a failed asylum seeker with such links and no passport was walking German streets is “the question 82 million Germans probably want an answer to,” said Rainer Wendt, Chairman of the German Police Union. He added: “How many more ticking time bombs are roaming around here? . . . We saw how much damage one person can do with a truck.” The dragnet for Amri is focused on the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia as well as Berlin, both places where the Tunisian suspect once lived. Police units had been due to stage raids Wednesday, but they remained mysteriously on hold. The interior minister in North Rhine-Westphalia, Ralf Jäger, said the Tunisian man had bounced around Germany since arriving in July 2015, living in the southern city of Freiburg and later in Berlin. Although authorities have sought to accelerate the deportation of rejected asylum seekers this year, there is still a backlog in Germany of tens of thousands, many of whom are able to resist because their countries of origin refuse to take them back. Amri was one of them. [One doesn’t “ask” their origin countries to please take them back. Rather, you simply dump them back over the fence.] Amri had not been deported because — like many asylum seekers in Germany — he did not have a passport. The Tunisian government initially denied that he was a national and delayed issuing his passport. Pending his deportation, Amri had received a “toleration” status from the government. Amri’s new Tunisian passport finally arrived Wednesday. Authorities knew that Amri had “interacted” with Abu Walaa, a 32-year-old of Iraqi descent arrested in November on charges of recruiting and sending fighters from Germany to the Islamic State. Key evidence in Walaa’s case came from an Islamic State defector who had returned to Germany and accused Walaa of helping to recruit him and arrange his travel to Syria. “Anis Amri was engaging with extremist salafist circles in Germany,” a German security official said. Amri had also been under police surveillance for several months until September of this year, because he was suspected of planning a burglary in Berlin to finance the purchase of weapons. The suspicion wasn’t confirmed. He was found only to be a small-time drug dealer. Investigators discovered Amri’s documents in the cabin of the truck that barreled into the market. President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday stood by his plans to establish a registry for Muslims and temporarily ban Muslim immigrants from the United States. When asked by a reporter whether he was rethinking or reevaluating them in the wake of a fresh terrorist attack in Berlin, Trump replied, “You know my plans.” Trump said the attack on a Berlin Christmas market had vindicated him. “All along, I’ve been proven to be right. One hundred percent correct,” Trump said. “What’s happening is disgraceful.” Amri had several aliases and was apparently born in the southern Tunisian desert town of Tataouine in 1992. Witnesses described one man fleeing the scene after the truck — packed with a cargo of steel — roared into revelers at a traditional Christmas market. One suspect, a Pakistani asylum seeker, was arrested Monday night, but authorities later released him because of a lack of evidence. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Wall Street Journal / January 5, 2017 At a regional parliamentary hearing Thursday, it was revealed that top German federal and regional security officials met seven times to discuss the potential danger posed by Tunisian [economic] migrant and radical Islamist Anis Amri in the year before he attacked a Berlin Christmas market, the latest revelation in a string of mishaps that failed to prevent the attack. Despite extensive surveillance, efforts to detain him repeatedly faltered because police and prosecutors believed they didn’t have evidence that would stand up in court. The emerging affair is raising questions about the ability of Germany, which was struck four times by Islamist terrorists last year, to prevent future attacks. It is also increasing pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel amid accusations that her decision to accept hundreds of thousands of mostly Muslim migrants in 2015 might have put the country at risk. A surveillance-camera screenshot released this week by Belgian police shows Anis Amri at a Brussels train station on Dec. 21, two days after the attack in Berlin. “Does one have to sit in a truck before the state can act?” asked Social Democrat Andreas Bialas at the parliamentary hearing of North Rhine-Westphalia. “Nobody understands how a known extremist was able to walk around freely in this country,” said Gregor Golland, a regional lawmaker from the Christian Democratic Union. The illegal Tunisian immigrant—his asylum request was rejected in June 2016—rammed a truck into Christmas market in central Berlin on Dec. 19, leaving 12 people dead and dozens more injured. He escaped after German police first arrested the wrong man and then missed crucial evidence identifying Amri in a first sweep of the truck. Amri trekked across Europe and was eventually shot by Italian police four days later. The new details show that Amri tricked German authorities from the moment he entered the country in the summer of 2015, taking advantage of the administrative chaos amid a surge of asylum seekers that year and the lack of central database about the new arrivals to register himself across different states, using 14 different identities, sometimes leaving just a day between registrations. Authorities were first alerted to his radical Islamist tendencies in October that year. A roommate of Amri warned authorities that he had spotted photos on Amri’s cellphone showing people dressed in black and carrying weapons. An undercover agent infiltrated in the radical Islamist scene also reported Amri appeared to be serving as a messenger for a local Islamist network. In December 2015, having started to monitor him, authorities became aware that Amri had been expressing the desire to stage an attack in Germany and had searched online for instructions about how to build bombs. They were also tipped off that he was planning a robbery in Berlin to fund the purchase of weapons. Shortly thereafter, state and federal security officials gathered for the first time to discuss his case. In February, Amri was placed on a list of dangerous radical Islamists. That month alone, officials from the joint counterterrorism center in Berlin, an umbrella body for 40 federal and regional security agencies, discussed Amri’s case at three separate meetings. Four more meetings follow in April, in June and a last one in November, a month before the attack. Authorities concluded Amri didn’t pose an acute risk, officials testified Thursday. Undercover agents learned in February that Amri had moved to Berlin and was, again, speaking about wanting to die in the name of Allah and seeking other people to help him plan and conduct an attack. On the back of this latest information, federal prosecutors opened an fresh undercover investigation, monitoring his communications for six months through September. But after this failed to yield actionable evidence, investigators suspended their electronic surveillance. As recently as July, authorities discussed targeting Amri with a new legal provision that fast-tracks the deportation of someone seen as a particular terror risk. In a discussion involving a representative from the general prosecutor’s office, they decided against using the measure because they didn’t believe they could prove in court that Amri presented an acute danger, state Interior Ministry official Burkhard Schnieder said. In any case, officials said, a deportation effort using that legal provision in the summer wouldn’t have worked because Tunisian officials only confirmed Amri’s status as a Tunisian citizen in October. In September and October last year, police in North Rhine-Westphalia received tips from Tunisian and Moroccan security agencies that Amri supported Islamic State, had contact with Islamic State sympathizers in Berlin, and “wanted to carry out a project” in Germany, Dieter Schürmann, head of North Rhine-Westphalia’s criminal investigative agency LKA told lawmakers. But the warnings were too abstract to justify an arrest, he added. On a scale of one to eight, with one representing the strongest risk, Amri ranked five, Mr. Schürmann said. German security officials use the scale, which is based on an analysis of evidence against a suspect, to assess the threat posed by a suspect. But because authorities never had proof that he was putting in motion any intent or plan to attack, Amri didn’t register a higher score. In other words, what appeared like a mountain of evidence documenting Amri’s intention, officials said, didn’t satisfy German courts’ requirements to detain him on suspicion of planning an attack or even being a passive member of a foreign terrorist organization—a criminal offense under German law. “What authorities knew was hearsay. That isn’t enough to arrest someone. You need to convince a judge,” Mr. Jäger said. He said many of the 548 potentially dangerous radical Islamists on German authorities’ official list of potential attackers have been known “to make such threats or even just brag about wanting to do an attack” without acting on them.

SEAT remains on shaky ground (they'd sell it if they could), and VW runs it. But Skoda is a winner in global market sales. Always capable and well-managed, Skoda enjoys a high degree of autonomy. Unlike SEAT products which are designed in Germany, Skoda does most of its own designing.

Jim, regarding Navistar, that's not what is going on here.

Four (4.5L) and six-cylinder (6.9L) versions of the MAN D08, from 150hp to 340hp. http://www.truck.man.eu/de/en/distribution-transport/tgl/technology/Technology.html http://www.truck.man.eu/de/en/distribution-transport/tgm/technology/Technology.html

Heavy Duty Trucking / December 20, 2016 Truck and engine maker Navistar International Corp. (NYSE:NAV) on Tuesday reported losses for both its fiscal fourth quarter and full year. But it's optimistic about the future with its pending strategic alliance with Volkswagen Truck & Bus, which has received U.S. antitrust approval. The Illinois manufacturer had a net loss of $34 million for the quarter ending on Oct. 31, or 42 cents per share, compared will a fourth quarter 2015 net loss of $50 million or 61 cents per share. This was short of expectations. The average estimate of seven analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research had forecast net income of 24 cents per share. Revenue in the most recent quarter fell 17% from a year earlier to $2.06 billion, also missing analysts’ expectations. The drop was largely driven by an 18% decline for charge-outs (typically trucks that have been invoiced to customers with units held in dealer inventory) in the company's Class 6-8 trucks and buses in the United States and Canada. Those charge-outs totaled 13,000 units, and largely reflected continued softening of Class 8 industry volumes in the U.S. and Canadian markets, according to the company. Fourth quarter 2016 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) was $95 million versus $86 million in the same period a year ago. This year's fourth quarter included $9 million in net charges for asset impairments and restructurings, and $8 million in pre-existing warranty adjustments. As a result, adjusted fourth quarter 2016 EBITDA was $112 million. For all of fiscal 2016, Navistar reported a net loss of $97 million, or $1.19 per share, versus a net loss of $184 million, or $2.25 per share, for fiscal year 2015. Revenue for fiscal 2016 was $8.1 billion compared to $10.1 billion in fiscal year 2015. Fiscal year 2016 adjusted EBITDA was $508 million, versus $494 million adjusted EBITDA for 2015. Full-year adjusted EBITDA margins increased 140 basis points to 6.3% Despite the losses, Troy Clarke, president and CEO, said the company was able to lower its break-even point and improve operations, in the fourth quarter and throughout the year. "We recorded our fourth consecutive year of adjusted EBITDA improvement and significantly improved our adjusted EBITDA margin year on year, despite a substantial decline in revenues primarily due to the challenging conditions in the Class 8 market,” he said. According to Clarke, Navistar had its third straight year of record profits in its parts business, totaling $640 million, while it “saw solid truck and bus order share performance, which positions us for higher retail market share in the future.” Update on VW alliance During the most recent fiscal quarter, Navistar announced plans for a wide-ranging strategic alliance with Volkswagen Truck & Bus, which includes an equity investment in Navistar, strategic technology and supply collaboration and a procurement joint venture. In providing an update on its status, Navistar said that all appropriate regulatory filings have been made, and that it has already received antitrust approvals in the U.S. and Poland. Meantime, other regulatory approvals are pending, and other agreements between the parties that constitute closing conditions remain on track, including final terms for the procurement joint venture and the companies' first powertrain collaboration, details of which will be announced soon after the closure of the alliance. The company expects the transaction to close in the first quarter of calendar year 2017. "Although we expect tough industry conditions to continue through the first half of 2017, we see further opportunities to continue to reduce our break-even point, including leveraging some early cost synergies from the Volkswagen Truck & Bus alliance," Clarke said. "The alliance announcement has been positively received by our customers, which when combined with our ongoing cadence of new product offerings, confirms our confidence in our improving standing in the market." More earnings details Navistar’s truck segment reported a loss of $189 million for fiscal 2016, compared with a fiscal year 2015 loss of $141 million. Its global operations segment recorded a loss of $21 million compared to a year-ago fiscal year loss of $67 million. Its financial services segment recorded a fiscal 2016 profit of $100 million, slightly higher than in fiscal year 2015.

The Wall Street Journal / December 20, 2016 Truck maker posts quarterly loss and expects soft conditions to continue Navistar International Corp. expects regulatory review of its planned alliance with Volkswagen AG to be completed early next year, allowing the companies to begin working on commercial trucks and engines for the U.S. market. Navistar said Tuesday the U.S. government has already given its antitrust approval for the alliance. Regulatory approval though is pending in other countries, particularly in Brazil and Mexico where the German car and truck maker and Illinois-based Navistar compete more with each other. “We’re excited to get started,” said Chief Executive Troy Clarke, during a conference call with analysts. “We won’t let a day go by without making sure these approvals are being prodded towards the right conclusion.” Navistar reported the two companies are close to completing the details for the venture’s initial projects for purchasing raw materials and commodity components and developing new powertrains. The company said it expects the deal to close by the end of March. Navistar on Tuesday reported another quarterly loss and a sharp decline in revenue amid a weak demand for commercial trucks. Volkswagen in September revealed plans for a $256-million investment in Navistar, a 16.6% stake in the company’s stock that will also give the German company two seats on Navistar’s board. The alliance will broaden the footprint of Volkswagen’s truck business to the U.S., making it more competitive with rival Daimler AG, whose Freightliner truck brand in North America has a market-leading share in heavy-duty trucks. Daimler has been able to rely on parts and engine technology from its truck models in Europe and other markets to hold down costs for its Freightliner unit. Navistar, which has struggled in recent years to keep up with tougher standards for diesel engine emissions and other regulations, expects the alliance with Volkswagen to yield $500 million of cost savings during the first five years and $200 million annually after that. “On the purchasing side, we’re ready to jump right in as soon as [the deal] closes,” said Chief Finance Officer Walter Borst. Navistar is struggling through a weak truck market as it tries to lower its costs and regain market share lost a few years ago when its strategy for complying with U.S. emissions standards undermined the performance and reliability of its truck engines. Company executives predicted the truck market in the U.S. and Canada would remain weak through at least the first half of 2017 as truck companies reduce their fleets for lower freight volumes. Navistar’s truck sales fell by 25% for the fiscal year ended Oct. 31, as overall revenue, which includes replacement parts, dropped 20% to $8.1 billion Navistar expects revenue in 2017 to be about flat with 2016. “This is just the trough of the truck cycle,” Mr. Clarke said. “It will end and our call is that it corrects as we go through 2017. The sooner, the better.” For the fiscal fourth quarter, Navistar reported a loss of $34 million, or 42 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $50 million, or 61 cents a share. Analysts expected a profit of 24 cents a share. The company posted adjusted profit excluding special items of $112 million that also was far below analysts’ forecast. Revenue from the quarter slipped 17% to $2.06 billion, missing analysts’ expectations of $2.2 billion. Navistar’s stock was recently down 1% at $29.39.

BMT...........Simply the best knowledge base for truck information the world over.

Please excuse me, but I don't understand what thought(s) you are trying to express.

Associated Press / December 18, 2016 Police say a 3-year-old boy being taken on a shopping trip by his grandmother was murdered in an Arkansas road rage shooting when a driver opened fire on the grandmother's car because he thought she "wasn't moving fast enough." The boy and his grandmother were at a stop sign in southwest Little Rock on Saturday when a driver angry about the delay stepped out of his car and opened fire. They say the boy was struck by gunfire at least once. The grandmother wasn't struck. She drove away and called police from a shopping center. Police Lt. Steve McClanahan says investigators believe the grandmother and the boy "were completely innocent" and have no relationship with the shooter. Police are looking for an older black Chevrolet Impala driven by a tall black man.

Jeffrey Rosen, The Wall Street Journal / December 16, 2016 The president-elect will inherit an executive branch whose power has ballooned far beyond its constitutional bounds In an interview in early December, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said that President-elect Donald Trump is committed to respecting the constitutional prerogatives of Congress. “We’ve talked about…the separation of powers,” he said. “He feels very strongly, actually, that under President Obama’s watch, he stripped a lot of power away from the Constitution, away from the legislative branch of government, and we want to reset the balance of power so that [the] people and the Constitution are rightfully restored.” If history is any guide, Mr. Ryan’s optimism is misplaced. During the election of 1912, the Progressive candidate, Theodore Roosevelt, articulated a populist defense of virtually unchecked executive power, declaring that the president is a “steward of the people” who can do anything that the Constitution does not explicitly forbid. Roosevelt’s rival, the Republican incumbent William Howard Taft, defended a far more constrained view of executive power, holding that the president could only do what the Constitution explicitly authorized. Ever since the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Republican and Democratic presidents have embraced Theodore Roosevelt’s view, asserting ever more expansive visions of the president’s ability to do whatever he likes without congressional approval. Both George W. Bush and Barack Obama aggressively deployed executive power to circumvent Congress, and their partisans accepted it. During his own campaign, Mr. Trump declared, “I am your voice” and “I alone can fix it.” This is not the rhetoric of a president who intends to defer to the legislative branch. Teddy Roosevelt’s populist vision is hard to reconcile with the vision of the framers of the Constitution, who set out to create a president energetic enough to lead national initiatives but constrained enough that he would not threaten liberty. Alexander Hamilton yearned for a monarchical president, but the Constitutional Convention of 1787 designed a presidency with strikingly few enumerated powers—stronger than a state governor but much weaker than the hated tyrant King George III. Article II of the Constitution assigns to the president a few explicit powers—command of the armed forces, a veto on legislation, the power to make appointments and treaties with the Senate’s consent—but the text doesn’t specify whether the president has any general powers beyond those specifically listed. It fell to George Washington to fill in some of the gaps—establishing, for example, the president’s power to recognize foreign governments and initiate treaty negotiations without formally consulting the Senate. From George Washington to Abraham Lincoln, presidents were sensitive, by and large, to Congress’s constitutional prerogatives, which Congress asserted vigorously. President Washington, for instance, was concerned enough about “the insidious wiles of foreign influence” in American politics that he issued a proclamation threatening criminal prosecution of any U.S. citizen who took sides in the war pitting revolutionary France against the rest of Europe. But he also thought it important, after the fact, to persuade Congress to endorse this policy of neutrality. When President James K. Polk moved troops to the Mexican-American border in 1846 in response to what he claimed was the emergency of a Mexican invasion, a Whig congressman from Illinois named Abraham Lincoln introduced his famous “spot” resolutions. Lincoln demanded that Polk identify the precise spot where blood had been shed, to prove it was on U.S. soil. (The resolutions earned him the nickname “Spotty Lincoln.”) Beginning in 1859, President James Buchanan repeatedly asked Congress to approve his request to deploy troops to Central America; when Congress refused, he meekly submitted. As a wartime president himself, Lincoln authorized his generals in 1861 to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, which allows prisoners to challenge the constitutionality of their detentions. Although the Constitution gives Congress the power to suspend the writ, Congress wasn’t in session, and Lincoln felt that he needed emergency action to keep military rail lines open. But Lincoln then called Congress back into session and persuaded it to approve his suspension of habeas corpus. As President Taft would later note in a lecture on the powers of the presidency, “Congress subsequently expressly gave [Lincoln] this right, and the Supreme Court sustained his exercise of it under the act of Congress.” Taft was a judicially minded president who would achieve his life’s ambition only after leaving the White House, when he became chief justice on the Supreme Court. Throughout his years in public life, he approached all decisions by asking whether they comported with the Constitution. Appointed governor of the Philippines in 1900, for example, Taft stopped in Japan, where the empress presented his wife Nellie with a tapestry. Always honest to a fault, Taft insisted that she return the gift, on the grounds that the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution prevented him from accepting gifts from foreign governments. Mrs. Taft eventually appealed to President William McKinley, who ruled against her husband and sided with her. As president from 1909 to 1913, Taft took a constitutionally constrained view of his own powers. “The thing which impresses me most is not the power I have to exercise under the Constitution, but the limitations and restrictions to which I am subject under that instrument,” Taft declared. Taft was appalled in August 1910 when Theodore Roosevelt, his predecessor in the White House, delivered his famous “New Nationalism” speech in Osawatomie, Kansas. In his autobiography, published in 1913, Roosevelt elaborated on what he meant in that speech by declaring that “the executive power” was “the steward of the public welfare.” Roosevelt explained, “My belief was that it was not only [the president’s] right but his duty to do anything that the needs of the nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution or by the law.” As he dramatically concluded, “I did not usurp power, but I did greatly broaden the use of executive power.” Taft strongly disagreed. “The true view of the Executive functions is, as I conceive it, that the President can exercise no power which cannot be fairly and reasonably traced to some specific grant of power,” he wrote in “The President and His Powers,” published in 1916. Although Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover subsequently embraced Taft’s constitutionalist vision of the presidency, all presidents since FDR have accepted some version of Theodore Roosevelt’s vision of the president as the powerful “steward of the public welfare.” During Franklin Roosevelt’s long tenure, for example, he exercised extraordinary powers across many domains: detaining Japanese Americans in California prison camps, trying and executing accused Nazi saboteurs, disregarding U.S. neutrality by implementing the Lend-Lease program and ultimately constructing the New Deal administrative state. He did all of this, it should be noted, with the tacit or explicit approval of Congress and the Supreme Court. When the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote “The Imperial Presidency” in 1973, what he had in mind was the office’s further expansion during the Cold War. In confronting the Soviet Union and its allies, Schlesinger argued, presidents had asserted a range of extraconstitutional powers in foreign affairs. Because Congress had declined to push back, these powers had expanded to include domestic policy as well. President Harry Truman sent troops to Korea in 1950 without congressional authorization and two years later asserted his military powers as commander-in-chief to seize U.S. steel mills, claiming that he needed to avert a national strike that would harm the war effort. When presidents have acted imperially without the support of Congress, the Supreme Court has tended to rebuke them. The court repudiated Truman’s attempt to seize the steel mills under his military authority. It rejected President Richard Nixon’s attempt to invoke executive privilege to resist a special prosecutor’s demands for the Watergate tapes. And the justices also rejected President George W. Bush’s attempt, after the attacks of 9/11, to designate certain citizens and noncitizens as enemy combatants, to hold them indefinitely without trial and to try them in military commissions created without congressional approval. As a presidential candidate in 2008, Obama promised to repeal Mr. Bush’s executive orders on constitutional grounds. “The biggest problems we’re facing right now,” he said, “have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power in to the executive branch, and not go through Congress at all.” And yet, as president, Mr. Obama came to embrace—and even expand—the use of executive orders. In fact, in December 2011, he literally endorsed Theodore Roosevelt’s populist vision of the presidency, traveling to Osawatomie and invoking the New Nationalism speech to justify his own use of unilateral executive action. “Today,” Mr. Obama said, “we are a richer nation and a stronger democracy because of what [Theodore Roosevelt] fought for in his last campaign: an eight-hour workday and a minimum wage for women, insurance for the unemployed and for the elderly, and those with disabilities; political reform and a progressive income tax.” President-elect Trump is now drawing on that same populist tradition as he pledges to undo many progressive achievements by executive fiat. In 2014, Republicans won a majority in both houses of Congress, and Mr. Obama spent his final two years in office trying to circumvent congressional inaction or opposition. He issued a series of executive orders that critics said expanded the domestic reach of the imperial presidency. In areas such as immigration, greenhouse-gas emissions and gun control, Mr. Obama proposed policies, Congress refused to endorse them, and he then enacted the policies on his own. Overall, according to the Congressional Budget Office, Mr. Obama independently enacted 560 major regulations during his first seven years in office—nearly 50% more than during the two terms of the George W. Bush administration. The Supreme Court has repudiated or questioned some of Mr. Obama’s efforts to circumvent Congress, including his immigration orders, which the court effectively blocked by a 4-4 vote last June. Now Mr. Obama’s constitutional shortcuts may come back to haunt him. Mr. Trump has the power to repeal Mr. Obama’s executive orders with the stroke of a pen, just as Mr. Obama repealed those of his predecessor. Indeed, Mr. Trump has signaled that he may use his executive powers to dismantle key parts of Mr. Obama’s legacy—deferred deportation for undocumented immigrants, the Education Department’s Title IX regulations concerning gender identity on campuses, the Iran nuclear deal and the lifting of sanctions on Cuba. With the support or acquiescence of a Republican Congress, Mr. Trump could end up wielding even more sweeping powers. And he does not need congressional support to deploy troops abroad for limited periods. The Supreme Court might check Mr. Trump if he tried to carry out promises that are clearly unconstitutional—such as his threats to take away the citizenship of those who burn the American flag, to repeal libel laws or to deport people based on their religion. It might even check Mr. Trump in national-security cases—if he tried, for example, to reinstate waterboarding or sweeping surveillance without congressional approval. Mr. Trump’s international business interests and his children’s role in the White House may raise legal and constitutional challenges of their own. But unless a Republican Congress actively resists him, the conservative populist could enjoy sweeping powers, expanding the imperial presidency in ways that might make the progressive populist Theodore Roosevelt look constrained. Over the past century, presidential power has grown enormously in both foreign and domestic affairs. The only real check has occurred when the people themselves say that they have had enough—protesting in the streets, reshaping the parties and throwing the rascals out. In the end, only the American people, exercising their rights of speech, voting and association, can rein in a presidency that congressional Democrats and Republicans alike have allowed to grow far beyond the original bounds of the Constitution. .

Automotive News / December 18, 2016 Main benefits for diesel cars: Lower emissions, higher mpg A new generation of steel pistons is gaining favor in diesel passenger vehicles in Europe -- a strategic win in the lightweighting contest among steel, aluminum and other materials. But it could be a while before the technology reaches U.S. cars, experts say, primarily because diesels have fallen out of favor in the U.S., thanks to the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal. Steel pistons are common in medium- and heavy-truck engines in the U.S. and other global markets. "In Europe it's a big thing. High-speed passenger-car diesels are going in this direction," said Joachim Wagenblast, director of product development for piston supplier Mahle Engine Components USA Inc. in Farmington Hills, Mich. He said some automakers have steel pistons "in the development phase" for U.S. diesels. Mahle has made steel pistons for Renault's 1.5- and 1.6-liter car diesels since 2014. Less space The pistons offer 3 to 5 percent lower emissions and correspondingly better fuel economy than traditional pistons, according to Mahle and Rheinmetall Automotive AG, another supplier that makes steel pistons through its subsidiary, KS Kolbenschmidt GmbH. A key factor is size: The steel pistons are shorter. Because they're stronger than aluminum, steel pistons can work with less length than equivalent aluminum pistons. That potentially helps create a lower-profile engine that can fit under a lower-profile hood, the companies said. Shorter pistons also mean less surface area to interact with the piston wall, the suppliers said. In addition, steel pistons expand less than aluminum when they're heated. Those two properties spell less friction than aluminum, the companies said. Part of the new demand comes from tougher European emission regulations. "Very few companies are using steel pistons so far," but many companies are exploring the concept, said Alexander Sagel, head of the Hardparts Division of Rheinmetall Automotive. Subsidiary Kolbenschmidt has made steel pistons for Mercedes-Benz since 2014, starting with the V-6 diesel in the Mercedes E350 BlueTec. Mercedes-Benz USA doesn't import that model. In the spring of 2016, Mercedes also added new four-cylinder diesels with steel pistons for Europe, starting with the diesel-powered E class. Mercedes-Benz USA isn't offering any diesels, said spokesman Rob Moran. He said the U.S. company's priority in the diesel segment is getting U.S. certification for the GLS large crossover. The U.S. gets aluminum pistons, Moran said.

Automotive News / December 18, 2016 Advocates for V2V communications systems are looking at Donald Trump's calls for infrastructure funding as a fresh opportunity to embed highway corridors and cities with the technology needed to link connected cars together. At the intersection of two presidential administrations, there's new hope for making cars more connected to one another and the world around them. Advocates for vehicle-to-vehicle communications systems are looking at President-elect Donald Trump's calls for an ambitious infrastructure funding bill as a fresh opportunity to embed highway corridors and cities with the technology needed to link connected cars together, or so-called vehicle-to-infrastructure communications systems. "Things are sort of lining up in a way that is useful and is going to help "vehicle-to-infrastructure' get deployed," said Steven Bayless, vice president of public policy for the Intelligent Transportation Society of America, a Washington, D.C., trade group. "We think there's an opportunity for vehicle-to-infrastructure in the bill, so we're going to push for that. The path is pretty clear." Policymakers, safety advocates and automakers have longed for a fleet equipped with vehicle-to-vehicle communications systems, linked together by a smart infrastructure, to reduce crashes and ease traffic congestion. But the pace of the technology's rollout, more than a decade in the making, has been hindered by several factors, including a lack of federal standards for the in-vehicle systems and limited funding for infrastructure deployment to link connected cars. Yet the Obama administration took key steps to advance the technology's rollout last week. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's proposed mandate for all new cars to have vehicle-to-vehicle communications systems calls for a shared set of standards to ensure that connected vehicles can communicate with one another in a common language and sets a timetable for the technology's rollout. NHTSA estimates the mandate will take full effect in 2023, assuming the proposal becomes a final rule in 2019. "A lot of folks were worried about sticking their nose out there without a standard," Bayless said. "With a standard, it gives automakers confidence to move forward." NHTSA said it plans to issue guidance soon for how state and local governments could deploy vehicle-to-infrastructure systems, adding another measure of clarity. NHTSA has said a connected fleet and infrastructure could prevent some 80 percent of vehicle crashes involving nonimpaired drivers. The systems use dedicated short-range communications radios to relay basic vehicle data -- such as speed and direction -- between vehicles 10 times per second. If the communications indicate an impending collision at a stoplight, for example, the vehicles can warn drivers to take action to avert it. Automakers likewise view V2V technology as a key enabler of autonomous vehicles [that virtually no consumers have asked for], which they see as a principal means of reducing the number of crashes caused by human error. Dedicated short-range communications messages have a range of about 300 yards, which NHTSA says is about triple the effective range of the radar, cameras and sensors of modern automated driving systems. V2V and V2I can also "see" around corners, allowing drivers to be warned of risks beyond their line of sight. Autonomous vehicles also need clear lane markings and smooth roads to operate safely, which means Trump's infrastructure ambitions are shaping up as an important turning point for the technology.

Reuters / December 13, 26 The U.S. Energy Department said on Tuesday it refused to comply with a request from President-elect Donald Trump's Energy Department transition team for the names of people who have worked on climate change and the professional society memberships of lab workers. The memo sent to the Energy Department on Tuesday and reviewed by Reuters last week contains 74 questions including a request for a list of all department employees and contractors who attended the annual global climate talks hosted by the United Nations within the last five years. Energy Department spokesman Eben Burnham-Snyder said Tuesday the department will not comply. "Our career workforce, including our contractors and employees at our labs, comprise the backbone of (the Energy Department) and the important work our department does to benefit the American people," Burnham-Snyder said. "We are going to respect the professional and scientific integrity and independence of our employees at our labs and across our department," he added. "We will be forthcoming with all publicly available information with the transition team. We will not be providing any individual names to the transition team." He added that the request "left many in our workforce unsettled." Trump has named former Texas Governor Rick Perry to run the Department of Energy*. The agency employs more than 90,000 people working on nuclear weapons maintenance and research labs, nuclear energy, advanced renewable energy, batteries and climate science. * https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/14/rick-perry-formally-announced-as-trump-pick-for-energy-secretary

http://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/40601-can-anyone-explain-difference-between-tc15-and-tc25-transfer-cases/

You have an R688ST. "T" stands for tractor. Sales Engineering would never allow dump body fitment onto a regular R-model. The frame and front axle aren't up to the task. Even if you go to a heavier axle, then the tractor frame is the weak link. If you could upgrade to a 14,300 lb FAW538 front axle and springs, sure that would help. But it would be challenging to find one nowadays. An RD688S is a 6x4 dump chassis. "D" stands for dump. The RD has a deeper and thicker frame rail.

Looks cut and dry to me.........the president is exempt from the federal ethics rules. From January 20, we're entering uncharted territory anyway, so I see no problem with him simply ignoring the "tradition" and getting on with the show. As for not accepting money/gifts from kings, princes or foreign countries, that's understandable and easily done (to my knowledge all presidents have all accepted small gifts....... it would be considered rude in many foreign countries to decline).

Iveco Trucks Australia Press Release / December 6, 2016 .

Iveco Trucks Press Release / December 13, 2016 Champion racers Team PETRONAS De Rooy Iveco will field three trucks in the 2017 installment of the grueling Dakar rally: an Iveco “Powerstar” 4x4 and two Iveco “Trakker” 4x4 vehicles. Gerard De Rooy will again take the wheel of the Powerstar with the two Trakkers being piloted by Ton van Genugten and Wuf van Ginkel. Iveco’s sponsorship of Team PETRONAS De Rooy Iveco is now in its seventh consecutive year, with the manufacturer focused on providing the Team with the necessary vehicles, engines and spare parts, to defend the Dakar title and continue its outstanding race results of recent years. All three trucks are equipped with Iveco Cursor 13 engines with up to 900 horsepower, specially engineered for the rally by FPT Industrial – the powertrain brand of CNH Industrial. Seven additional vehicles – six Trakkers and one Daily – will complete the Team PETRONAS De Rooy Iveco line-up, providing support and assistance. This year’s Dakar will again take place in South America starting on January 2 from Asunción, Paraguay, with racers traversing over 9,000 kilometres (5,592 miles) through Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina before crossing the finish line in Buenos Aires on January 14. Iveco Brand President, Pierre Lahutte, says the company has high hopes for success in its 2017 Dakar campaign. "With this year’s team, we hope to replicate the great performance of last year in which Iveco dominated one of the most competitive Dakar ever…” he said “As far as we are concerned, we are sure that we will continue to put the excellent reliability of our trucks on the trails of the Dakar rally, enabling the team's outstanding pilots to give their best performance in the race." Iveco Australia Marketing Manager, Darren Swenson, said the Dakar was a means for Iveco to demonstrate its reliability and off-road performance credentials on the world stage. “The Dakar is the real deal, it’s arguably the most demanding off-road event anywhere in the world – the race captures people’s imaginations and can have good flow-on effects for the Iveco range in the consumer market,” Mr Swenson said. “In Australia, the Iveco off-road range comprising Daily 4x4, Eurocargo 4x4, Trakker 4x4 and 6x6 and Astra 6x6 and 8x8 are already extremely well regarded, but performing well in Dakar further helps customer awareness and appreciation of these very capable vehicles.” Follow all the news at: http://www.iveco.com/dakar/Pages/HomePage.aspx Iveco will keep its fans up to date throughout the rally on www.iveco.com/dakar, following the race step by step with daily updates from South America. The website narrates a journey through the world’s most difficult and demanding off-road race. The website, published in English and Spanish, will be updated every day with Team PETRONAS De Rooy Iveco’s results and performance data, plus multimedia content transmitted directly from the course itself. Likewise, the Iveco’s global social media channels will be updated every day, with all the latest news as well as reports, videos and photos. .

Weekend Away Owner/Driver / December 14, 201 Terry Leanne and Ally Cecil headed to the 2016 Castlemaine Truck Show for a break "I’ve been coming here for 6-7 years," says Castlemaine Truck Show attendee Terry Leanne. "It’s a good break and weekend away," grinned Terry. "I’m not entered in anything, we’ve just come for the weekend, a family weekend." Terry’s Kenworth is a working truck and is kept busy hauling livestock and hay. The Kenworth is one of three trucks in the fleet that also includes a Kenworth Aerodyne and a little T350. The T404 has a C15 Caterpillar under the bonnet and has done 1.7 million having had a rebuild at 1.5 million. "It’s wearing the original paint and despite spending 40 per cent of its time on gravel roads. "It’s 7km of gravel every morning and evening to get underway. I have owned it for eight years and it’s a beautiful truck. "I am proud of my job and my rig so this weekend it a great chance to catch up with mates. Photo gallery - https://www.ownerdriver.com.au/events-news/1612/castlemaine-truck-show-2016-2

Family heirloom Owner/Driver / December 12, 2016 Two polished Kenworths were among the best trucks to hit the Castlemaine Truck Show in 2016 Dion Pateras and Dom Greco were polishing their respective trucks when Owner//Driver caught up with them. Dion had brought along a T950 with a 4.3 million kilometers (2.7 million miles) on the clock and Dom had brought a Kenworth T404ST both owned by Pateras Interstate Transport. "Six to seven years ago, it was given a paint job but still has the original chassis, paint, diffs and drive guards," stated Dion. "It is very straight and never been over. It doesn’t owe us anything. It’s a family heirloom, this one." The T950 is one of 35 trucks in the Pateras fleet which is based in Werribee South. The Cummins N14 that sits under the bonnet has been changed over three times. The T950 is still running up to Brisbane and according to Dion is still going strong. "It’s the one truck show that I make the effort for. I’d miss a day’s work to get to this show, it’s a great weekend!" Photo gallery - https://www.ownerdriver.com.au/events-news/1612/castlemaine-truck-show-2016-1

KTLA 5 / December 12, 2016 Two people in Oklahoma have been arrested in what nurses described as "the worst case of child abuse they had seen." On Saturday, the parents, 25-year-old Kevin Fowler and 24-year-old Aislyn Miller, were arrested on child abuse charges. Police in Owasso, Oklahoma were called to a local urgent care Friday evening to investigate reports of child abuse. When authorities arrived, nurses were working on two victims, who were described as twin infants, the Tulsa World reports. According to KJRH, officers said a nurse told them they saw a maggot crawl out of one of the victim's genitals. The nurse found feces in one of the infant's ears and said the malnourished children looked like skeletons. Nurses found feces in one child’s ear while the other baby had a strand of hair wrapped tightly around one of its fingers. The baby’s finger had become infected as a result, and that skin had started growing over the hair. The infants were both suffering from bed sores and severe diaper rash. Miller told police she knew the twin infants were in bad condition, but said that she and Fowler are "new parents" and she didn't have any experience taking care of babies. Miller said the children seemed malnourished because they were born prematurely. She said the couple didn’t have health insurance, so they let they ignored the children’s health problems. Miller said the babies had not seen a physician since their birth. Both were jailed and held on $100,000. .

Class 6 and 8 International, and Class 4 FCA (Dodge) data, are missing.

Ward’s Auto / December 13, 2016 U.S. big-truck sales totaled 29,754 units in October, 22.4% below like-2015’s 35,279. Class 8 sales were off 33.2% from year-ago on 13,943 deliveries. Kenworth sales fell 32.3% from the same month last year. Peterbilt was the only brand that saw a sales increase, rising 2.2% increase on 2,062 units. Freightliner posted the weakest results, dropping 44.7% from 2015. Mack brand sales plunged 31.5 percent, while Volvo brand sales crashed 39.1 percent. Year-to-date, Class 8 sales are down 22.4% from the same month last year. Overall, medium-duty sales fell 9.5% with monthly volume at 15,811. For January-November, sales are running 4.1% above the prior year. Class 7 sales reached 4,150 deliveries, 17.3% below year-ago. Current year-to-date sales are still up 2.6% on 55,107 units. Hino was the only truck maker to post an increase, up 1.7% from like-2015. Large losses were seen by Ford (-30.7%), International (-22.5%) and Kenworth (-34.6%). Class 6 sales also saw a decline in November, down 14.1% on 4,579 units. Group leader Ford rose 27.4%. Kenworth increased 15.9%, while Peterbilt slipped 4.5%. Freightliner posted the highest loss within the group, dropping 47.3%. Class 5 was the only medium-duty segment to see a gain, up 0.5% to 5,941 orders. Class 5 domestic volume increased 2.4% while imports fell 13.3%. Freightliner (61.6%), FCA (37.8%) and Hino (16.3%) saw big gains. International and Isuzu posted large declines of 67.6% and 20.7%, respectively. Mitsubishi Fuso underperformed the most, down 84.7%, but on small volume. Class 4 sales totaled 1,141 units, down 5.3%. Mitsubishi Fuso had the hardest hit in this segment as well, down 76.5% from prior-year. Isuzu’s domestically-assembled trucks [at Spartan Motors] rose 38.8%, but sales of imported models fell 20.6%. Hino’s import lineup was up 14.4%. Ford posted a large decline of 40.7% (handing market share to FCA/Dodge). Through November, combined sales of medium- and heavy-duty trucks in the U.S. sit 10.7% below last year at 364,633. Class 8 ended November with a 65 days’ supply, down from 68 a year ago. A total of 36,359 units were in stock at the end of the month, down from 57,041 a year ago. Medium-duty days’ supply increased to 90 from only 71 last November. Total units in inventory rose to 56,950 from 49,708. .

Bob, Ford could certainly do a LOT better in Class 7 with the F-750 if it actually tried to sell them, rather than seemingly focusing on Class 6 F-650 sales. Or is it because Ford U.S. doesn't have any real commercial truck people anymore?

Ward’s Auto / December 13, 2016 Canada’s heavy truck makers declined again, posting a combined Class 4-8 sales drop of 12.5% on 2,830 deliveries. Class 8 November sales fell the most, down 20.4% from a year ago. All truck makers in this group saw big declines. Mack brand sales plummeted 51.2 percent, while Volvo brand sales plunged 37.7%, suffering the biggest drops in the group. Kenworth and Peterbilt posted losses of 18.4 percent and 11.6 percent, respectively. Freightliner was the group leader, declining only 9 percent from the same month last year. In the medium-duty segment, sales rose 9.9% to 931 units from 782 in the same month 2015. A large double-digit gain in Class 7 offset the loss in smaller-volume Class 4. In Class 7, a 108.3% rise in volume leader International sales and a 48.4% boost posted by Kenworth drove the segment to a 33.8% gain. Ford (23.1%) and Hino (22.4%) saw big gains, while Freightliner (2.8%) and Peterbilt (3.2%) posted more subtle gains. Class 6 sales recorded a small gain of 2.0% with the help of Ford and International jumping 223.1% and 315.4%, respectively. Hino also rose 12.8%, but Freightliner plummeted 38.5%. Class 5 domestic and import lines both posted gains for an overall increase of 5.3%. Isuzu’s import line nearly doubled, rising 48.3% to 53 units. Freightliner (38.5%) and Ford (12.7%) also increased sales from year-ago. Hino dropped 15.3%, and International plunged 65.4%. For the third month in a row, sales of Class 4 trucks fared the worst among all medium-duty truck segments. Deliveries fell 13.6% to 103 units from 110 year-ago. The domestic lineup increased due to Isuzu’s jump of 115.4%, but it wasn’t enough with Hino and Isuzu import lineups dropping 28.2% and 67.9%, respectively. Year-to-date, Canadian medium- and heavy-duty truck volume is down 18.0% through November on sales of 32,661 from like-2015’s 39,823. .