“During his first presidential visit to Europe, President Joe Biden and his European Union counterparts..hammered out an important agreement to suspend pointless retaliatory tariffs targeting a host of foods. The Washington Postcalled [the] agreement, which suspends the tariffs for five years, “a significant step in calming trade relations after the fury of the Trump years.””
…
“It leaves some non-food tariffs still in place. And the agreement could evaporate after five years—or sooner if the E.U. violates the terms of the agreement, notes senior Biden administration official Katherine Tai. This..agreement also doesn’t impact equally lousy Trump-era tariffs on Chinese goods. And, in the wake of Brexit, while the E.U. and the United Kingdom are busy playing tariff games that hurt members of each bloc—including Irish dairy and whiskey producers—there’s always the chance new tariffs could arise and target the United States.”
“Seated in the Situation Room with [Attorney General Bill] Barr, Milley, and [Secretary of Defense Mark] Esper, Trump exaggerated claims about the violence and alarmed officials … by announcing he’d just put Milley “in charge.”
Privately, Milley confronted Trump about his role. He was an adviser, and not in command. But Trump had had enough.
“I said you’re in f—ing charge!” Trump shouted at him.
“Well, I’m not in charge!” Milley yelled back.
“You can’t f—ing talk to me like that!” Trump said. …
“Goddamnit,” Milley said to others. “There’s a room full of lawyers here. Will someone inform him of my legal responsibilities?”
“He’s right, Mr. President,” Barr said. “The general is right.”
Asked for a response, Trump told Jonathan Swan through an aide: “This is totally fake news, it never ever happened. I’m not a fan of Gen. Milley, but I never had an argument with him and the whole thing is false. He never talked back to me. Michael Bender never asked me about it and it’s totally fake news.”
Trump later added: “If Gen. Milley had yelled at me, I would have fired him.”
Bender then told Swan: “This exchange was confirmed by multiple senior administration officials during the course of hundreds of hours of interviews with dozens of top Trump World aides for this book.””
” Former Attorney General William Barr bluntly dismissed some of former President Donald Trump’s election fraud allegations as “bulls***””
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““My attitude was: It was put-up or shut-up time,” Barr recalled at one point. “If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it. But my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there. It was all bulls***.”
The comment was part of multiple interviews Barr did this spring with ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, who wrote the Atlantic article describing Barr’s break with Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 election.”
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“In the Atlantic, Barr said then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had been encouraging him to speak out about the election. “Bill, I look around, and you are the only person who can do it,” McConnell reportedly told Barr.
Trump was apparently livid with Barr for his comments to the AP.
“How the f*** could you do this to me? Why did you say it?” Trump told Barr in a White House meeting, according to the Atlantic.
“Because it’s true,” Barr responded.
“You must hate Trump. You must hate Trump,” Trump continued.
In the tense White House meeting, Trump reportedly confronted Barr with a litany of complaints, ranging from falsehoods about the election results to how the Justice Department conducted itself during the campaign.
About two weeks later, Trump tweeted out Barr’s resignation letter, of which a substantial portion was dedicated to praising the president.
“Just had a very nice meeting with Attorney General Bill Barr at the White House. Our relationship has been a very good one, he has done an outstanding job!” Trump tweeted. “As per letter, Bill will be leaving just before Christmas to spend the holidays with his family.””
“Do you know who is back in the office, unlike State Dept. employees who’ve had access to COVID vaccines longer than most of the rest of us? Scores of millions of Americans, including many who would like to visit their relatives for the first time in a year and a half. Compounding that failure to put asses back in office chairs is the fact that, as Arndt says, “passport specialists need to be physically present in the office to process the passports. They are not processing remotely or from home.””
“Hong Kong’s freedom once provided a shining example for others to follow. While that freedom was never perfect, it enabled residents of the resource-poor territory to prosper. Residents enjoyed respect for their liberties that was rare in the region and unknown in neighboring China. But administration of Hong Kong was surrendered to China in 1997 and, as the recent raid on a pro-democracy newspaper demonstrates, the territory is losing its liberty as the world looks on in what the Chinese government clearly assumes is a mixture of disinterest and impotence.”
“Due process protections are especially important when the government contemplates taking away someone’s constitutional rights based on inherently iffy predictions about what he might otherwise do. The risk that someone will use a firearm to kill himself or others, however small, is apt to loom larger in the minds of judges than the risk that he will unjustly but temporarily lose his Second Amendment rights. Given that reality, legislators have an obligation to make sure that red flag respondents have ample opportunity to challenge the claim that they cannot be trusted with firearms.”
“Free markets increase total wealth. Competition encourages entrepreneurs to find new ways to release more value from both people and resources.
Because capitalism is voluntary and consumers have choices, the only way capitalists can get rich is to offer us something that we believe is better than we had before.
That creates new wealth.
Steve Jobs became a billionaire. But by creating Apple, he gave us more: millions of jobs and billions of dollars added to our economy.
Research shows that entrepreneurs only keep 2.2 percent of the additional wealth they generate. “In other words, the rest of us captured almost 98 percent of the benefits,” says economist Dan Mitchell of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity.
“I hope that we get 100 new super billionaires,” he adds, “Because that means 100 new people have figured out ways to make the rest of our lives better off.””