placeholder

It was truly disgraceful how the American economy massively outperformed all the other major developed economies and most of the smaller ones as well.

There's this belief floating around that Trump won that exchange. According to his way of thinking, he has abandoned his quest to protect American workers he claims were suffering because of the trade surpluses of Mexico and the US And his program to supplement and possibly supplant the income tax through tariffs is apparently at best on hold. I'd say his bluff got called.

Or they could be rejoicing because they can fill the vacuum left by the US. The US vets programs a lot more strictly than China does. So all China has to do is step in and fill the space formerly occupied by the US.

Sure. Great news. Now the US is dubiously protected against an exiguous of all the fentanyl coming into the states. And what exactly is the benefit? That a threat that never should have been made won't be carried out for the time being? That a country thatruns one of the smallest percentage trade surpluses with the U.S. is being threatened? And if you take away the oil and gas imiports, which Trump previously pushed for, it actually runs a deficit with the U.S. And I guess you consider it a good thing that the United States can no longer be trusted to uphold signed and ratified agreements. Why would anyone want to sign onto an agreement with the US given that the terms of said agreement could be flouted at any time?

Given that you have no evidence to support what was clearly a lie, you resort to empty taunting instead. You've got nothing.

The IRS had announced last year that it would make the free electronic tax return filing system permanent and asked all 50 states and the District of Columbia to help taxpayers file their returns through the program in 2025... The IRS has faced intense blowback to Direct File from private tax preparation companies that have made billions from charging people to use their software, and have spent millions lobbying Congress to protect their businesses. The average American typically spends about $140 preparing their returns each year. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/irs-musk-free-tax-program-b2691610.html Elon Musk, defender of the average American...billionaire.

Well for one thing, Trump caved too. He promised to crack down on the illegal supply of weapons going to Mexico. But what's more important, he has put tariffs at the center of his program. How does Canada or Mexico upping drug enforcement or stopping immigrants going to bring manufacturers back to America? Why can't the case be made that it was Trump who chickened out?

As usual, allegations about "tons of waste and fraud" What does "tons" mean in relation to the federal budget. This is just emotionalism. And it's always entertaining to see a Trump supporter bemoaning the budget while their guy not only wants to extend the unpaid for tax cuts he got passed last time he was in office, but he wants to create even more. And as for sending money abroad it's a tiny portion of the budget. But I'm sure that China is rejoicing in the cutbacks the US is making.

Someone else who believes in the authority of an anonymously run web site.

Snowflakes like to clump together.

I think only a fool would believe that a politically biased ignoramus should do the auditing. An ignoramus who claimed that he could cut at least 2 trillion dollars from the budget. Even though the entire discretionary portion of the budget is less than that. There actually are professionals who are trained in auditing and forensic accounting who can do that.

Now I see the doge portion of that rather busy website. And given that there's no explanation of what these alleged savings are, and no disclosure who the people are behind this site, why should anyone believe what they claim? I find it extraordinary that anyone could claim that there's anything authoritative about the anonymous figures who run this website.

Got any actual link to back up your claim? And are you assuming that the courts will uphold all or most of DOGE's cuts?

So you would rather thousands die if you can save 20? And do you think that given the infinitesimally small quantity imported from Canada, it's actually going to make a difference to supply? And can you share with us some success somewhere that came from the interdiction of transporting drugs? And even if there was such a success, do you understand how little fentanyl it takes to get someone high. And how integrated Canada and Mexico are into the North American economy? What's more, as potent as fentanyl is, there are analogs of fentanyl that are even more potent. "The emergence of numerous synthetic fentanyl analogs, including acetylfentanyl, butyrylfentanyl, acrylfentanyl, furanylfentanyl and β-hydroxythiofentanyl, which are manufactured in China, were made available to the illicit drug traffickers over the Internet. In July of 2016, the most potent commercially available opioid, carfentanil, started appearing in illicit drug submissions and medical examiner death investigation cases in Northeast Ohio. Postmortem femoral blood carfentanil concentrations are in the picogram per milliliter (pg/mL) range, which is extremely low, and tests the limits of detection for most analytical forensic toxicology laboratories. " https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6474477/#:~:text=The emergence of numerous synthetic,drug traffickers over the Internet.

I'm afraid that a lot less people are willing to spend Sundays with the Big Fella in the USA as well. Americans exaggerate their frequency of worship attendance, study finds Americans significantly overstate their rate of church attendance, concludes a paper published this month by a University of Chicago business school professor National Bureau of Economic Research. Dr. Devin Pope reviewed cellphone geodata from over two million Americans to examine their behavior with respect to religion. Pope concluded that only 5 percent of those surveyed attend services each week, and only 21 per cent attend each month – based on their location on Sunday mornings as determined by their cell phone location. https://anglican.ink/2024/04/22/americans-exaggerate-their-frequency-of-worship-attendance-study-finds/ There are lots of other polls and surveys that report the same thing. This one is particularly ingenious, though.

This help explains the high birth rate there.

Nice try at deflection. And it's not even clear your 45 million claim is true. Got some evidence to offer to back it up? I couldn't find any. Actually, what's going on here is that proved that a few of his claims were false so he's using this as an excuse to avoid further embarrassment. Nonetheless I will carry on exposing him when he makes false claims.

Stop denying facts. Here's the question he was asked at Madison Square Garden on Oct 27, 2024 Questioner:"How much do you think we can rip out of this wasted 6.5 trillion Harris-Biden Budget"? Musk: "Well, I think we can do at least 2 trillion." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2024-10-28/elon-musk-we-can-cut-2-trillion-from-us-budget-video Note that that was his minimum figure. Considering that discretionary spending in the Federal Budget totals less than 2 trillion, that's quite a claim.

Clearly you are unaware that we are all anonymous here. I won't say that what unconfirmable claims we make in this forum aren't worth the pixels they're printed in, but I will say that they aren't worth any more than that.

So, you're upset about the alleged 20 deaths in a year caused by fentanyl imported from Canada, but the fact that Narcan has saved many more lives is a bad thing? Confused much?

At least, I hope so.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Wlll B Good was joking.

Really? Do you mean something different from Narcan? If not, how does it ruin lives?

What kind of bizarre math are you engaged in? At any rate, 20 deaths is a blip. You think it's worthwhile to direct so much expenditure on this? There aren't better ways to spend the billions devoted to this threat? How much narcan could that money buy? I bet it would save a lot more lives.

President Donald Trump said his administration blocked $50 million for condoms to be sent to Gaza through its pause on foreign aid. But it has provided no evidence that $50 million was ever directed toward condoms for Gaza. The contractor identified by the State Department said it has not used U.S. aid “to procure or distribute condoms.” https://www.factcheck.org/2025/01/trump-administration-makes-unsupported-claim-about-50-million-for-condoms-to-gaza/ Basically, Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, made this claim at a news conference. Trump echoed it the next day. But, to date, the administration has offered absolutely no evidence to support this claim.