<....The chopping and changing is likely indicative of the fact that Trump is using the threat of tariffs as a negotiating tactic. The threat of tariffs may be more powerful than actually introducing them.

Economists are therefore hopeful that Trump will not go as far as he has suggested on the campaign trail.

In a note on Monday, Citi said it was expecting on average a five percentage point increase on effective US tariffs on imported goods, including a 10 to 15 percentage point increase in tariffs on China. This would raise average US tariffs from around 2-3pc to 7-8pc.

Citi expects retaliatory tariffs to be roughly half of what the US imposes.

Even so, any tariffs at all will mean higher prices for consumers in the US, greater pressure on US incomes and a blow to exporters. If Trump does impose a 10pc blanket tariff on all imports, it would knock 1.5pc off real US GDP, Citi has calculated.

Goldman Sachs has warned the European Union is likely to be in the firing line too.

Jari Stehn, the investment bank’s chief European economist, says Mr Trump is likely to keep ramping up the pressure on the eurozone to squeeze trade concessions from the bloc.

He predicts the new president will ultimately impose targeted sanctions on imports of cars made in Europe, stopping short of taxing everything arriving from the EU – but that this will still be sufficiently damaging to slow the already-struggling eurozone economy.

“There is going to be continued uncertainty where exactly trade policy will settle and there is an incentive for the US administration to keep Europe under pressure to extract concessions and a compromise,” said Mr Stehn.

“This trade policy uncertainty can have very detrimental cyclical effects on growth, on confidence, on investment and on the industrial cycle.”

It threatens a further slowdown for the eurozone economy which is already hamstrung by high energy prices and competition from China.

Energy

Trump was elected on a promise to “drill baby drill” and repeated that slogan on Monday.

He said: “America will be a manufacturing nation once again, and we have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have: the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth. And we are going to use it.

“We will bring prices down, fill our strategic reserves up again, right to the top, and export American energy all over the world.”

Trump immediately ordered a series of steps designed to cut red tape and regulation and increase investment in US energy production.

He revoked Biden administration measures blocking the sale of drilling rights in waters along the East and West coasts of America, and signed an executive order to unleash resource production in Alaska.

“We expect US crude oil production to continue rising,” says Paul Ashworth, North America economist at Capital Economics.

Boosting domestic energy production is at the heart of Trump’s pledge to bring down prices. In theory, more oil and gas would help to tackle inflation.

But Trump’s energy policies are in opposition with his trade policies when it comes to inflation. The US imports around 4m barrels of crude oil from Canada every day. Analysts have warned that if the US imposes blanket tariffs on Canadian imports, it will push up fuel prices.

It is also not clear how successful Trump’s efforts to use executive orders will actually be. During his first term, Trump tried unsuccessfully to use emergency powers to keep unprofitable coal plants going.

Boosting oil production is just one half of Trump’s energy plans. The other is undoing Biden’s climate change policies.

The White House said on Monday that Trump would withdraw the US from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, under which 196 countries committed to reducing carbon emissions....>

<....This means the US, the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases will be alongside Yemen, Libya and Iran as the only countries not in the pact.

He has also vowed to “revoke the electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto industry and keeping my sacred pledge to our great American autoworkers”.

Biden set a target for half of all new vehicle sales in the US to be electric by 2030 and offered subsidies of up to $7,500 for drivers who bought electric vehicles (EVs).

Trump painted his decision to axe these subsidies as about freedom of choice and support for the automotive industry, which has complained that EV sales targets around the world are too stretching.

He said in his inauguration address: “In other words, you’ll be able to buy the car of your choice. We will build automobiles in America again at a rate that nobody could have dreamt possible just a few years ago.”

Immigration

Trump said in his inauguration speech he would “declare a national emergency at our southern border”.

“All illegal entry will immediately be halted. And we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.”

He signed an executive order to send troops to the border with Mexico and another ending so-called birth-right citizenship for children who are born in the US to parents who do not have legal immigration status.

More is likely to come. Trump campaigned on a promise to carry out the largest mass deportations in American history.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the Trump administration was planning to send up to 200 US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to make a large-scale immigration raid in Chicago that was expected to begin on Tuesday morning.

Other so-called sanctuary cities such as New York, Denver and Miami are likely to come in the firing line.

Depending on its eventual scale, the immigration crackdown could have economic consequences.

Ashworth says deportations could reach 500,000 per year, matching the highs seen during the Obama administration. “As a result, our working assumption is that labour force growth will slow to zero,” he says.

A smaller pool of workers would tighten the labour market and would also contribute to higher inflation.

Tax

Back in 2017, Trump announced the biggest overhaul of the US tax system since 1986, substantially reducing rates of income tax and reducing the corporate tax rate from 35pc to 21pc.

The corporation tax cut was permanent, but many of the changes, including the changes to marginal personal income tax rates, were temporary and are due to expire in 2025.

Trump is expected to make the temporary cuts permanent, or at least extend them. Citi calculated this will cost $4 trillion over the next decade, pushing up the US government deficit.

However, because these tax cuts are in place, maintaining them will not create new inflationary pressures.

What will be more significant is whether Trump cuts corporation taxes and scraps taxes on tips – and whether or not he uses higher revenues from tariffs or savings from his efficiency drive to fund them.

Funding for any tax cuts will be key. Citi has calculated that an unfunded tax cut equivalent to 1pc of US GDP could potentially increase US GDP by 1pc in the first year, however this would be a “shock” that would mean higher inflation, higher government debt and higher interest rates.>

This content a problem, <fredremf>? F*** off and die!

<For weeks, dispirited Democrats have tried to will Donald Trump into being something resembling a normal Republican president. He was greeted warmly at Jimmy Carter’s funeral by Barack Obama, welcomed into the White House on his inauguration morning by Joe Biden, while Democrats who boycotted his swearing-in eight years ago dutifully announced their intention to sit through this one. Amy Klobuchar, the Minnesota Democratic senator and co-chair of the inaugural committee, even introduced Trump by pointedly referring to the fact that so many previous presidents had come to the ceremony–the one Trump skipped out on four years ago–was a testament to “our enduring democracy.”

But from the second sentence out of Trump’s mouth it was clear that those efforts had failed. Instead Trump returned to the presidency by unleashing a grievance-fueled tirade directed mostly at Joe Biden, who sat feet away, staring at the floor.

“We will be the envy of every nation, and we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer,” Trump said in the opening moments of his address. “Our sovereignty will be reclaimed. Our safety will be restored. The scales of justice will be rebalanced.”

Trump went on to accuse Biden of weaponizing the Department of Justice to bring him down—something for which no evidence exists—of abandoning American citizens suffering from natural disasters in order to devote resources to undocumented immigrants, and even suggested that there was a conspiracy behind the assassination attempt on him in Pennsylvania in July–also something for which no evidence exists.

“For American citizens, January 20th, 2025 is Liberation Day,” Trump proclaimed.

Trump’s second inauguration, and the nation’s 60th, was otherwise like none that had come before. It was held in the Capitol rotunda, the place where four years earlier rioters inspired by Trump had ransacked in an attempt to prevent the certification of Biden’s victory. The ostensible reason was to protect the Trump faithful from dangerous colds, but the weather in Washington D.C. today is in the mid-20’s — cold, but hardly dangerously so. In lieu of the dignitaries and political leaders who usually join a new president on the dais, Trump was joined by tech billionaires like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos. Much of downtown Washington is shut down with police and armed military personnel parked in intersections, shutting down large swathes of downtown, and erecting metal barriers in parts of the city....>

<....Still, it was not enough to dampen the ebullient mood among the Trump faithful, tens of thousands of whom travelled from across the country to witness the inauguration. On the streets of Washington on Sunday night spontaneous dance parties broke out, the music provided by cars parked on the streets. Revelers wore Trump wigs, and the now iconic red hats, only this time the “Make America Great Again” logo was replaced by more pointed messages. “Own The Libs,” said one. “Trump Was Right About Everything,” said another. The Chamber of Commerce Republicans and evangelical faithful who typically can be counted on to populate an inauguration crowd make up a scarcer presence in Washington this weekend, replaced by something more populist but also rawer, and angrier. At a bar near the White House, two friends from Oklahoma reminisced about the last time they had come to Washington, on January 6th, 2021, where they were in the audience for Trump’s speech before the Capitol riot. “And now we are back!” one said, declining to give his name. “Can you believe it!”

Those who were able watched Trump’s second inauguration speech from Capitol One arena, where they cheered loudly at some of the laundry list of proposals that Trump mentioned, including that “it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female” and booed the appearance on the screen of Democratic politicians and even Republicans thought to be insufficiently loyal to Trump. The president moved the traditional inaugural parade to inside that same arena, and a makeshift desk has been set up there, presumably so that Trump can, with his fans watching, can put his signature on some of the blizzard of executive orders that he has pledged to sign in his first hours in office, including declaring a national emergency at the southern border and ordering American troops there, in addition to scrapping the Biden administration’s electric vehicle rules and setting up an “External Revenue Service” to collect money from the tariffs of foreign countries and companies that Trump has vowed to enact.

The same arena was the site of a Trump rally just the day before, one that was keynoted by the Village People performing “Y.M.C.A.” Trump’s inauguration speech sounded not very different from the rambling address he gave to the crowd of hard-core supporters in that arena the day before. It had the same anger and vague threats of retribution, and in the Capitol rotunda Trump even repeated how he swept all seven swing states and won a popular vote victory — both of which he noted prominently in his inaugural address in the Capitol rotunda.

“Many people thought it was impossible for me to stage such a historic political comeback,” Trump said. “But as you see today, here I am. The American people have spoken.”

No 1970’s era disco group came out in the marbled halls of the Capitol after Trump finished. But if they had, it would scarcely have been a surprise.>

<House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) signaled Tuesday that he may not be done just yet with investigations revolving around former President Joe Biden and his family members – pardons or not – in a preview of a retribution tour to come.

Nor is he satisfied with the debunked, yet still popular right-wing conspiracy theory revolving around the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and the 26 FBI informants, known as confidential human sources, who he continued to claim were involved in orchestrating the attack – and not a mob of MAGA supporters.

The remarks came Tuesday night during a sit-down interview with GOP House leadership inside the U.S. Capitol with Fox News’ Sean Hannity.

“Here’s the big question: is this over?” Hannity asked the Michigan congressman. “Because my understanding is once you get a pardon, you no longer have a Fifth Amendment right to remain silent. If they go before your committees – every one of these pardoned family members – don’t they have to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help them God?”

Jordan told Hannity that there are “a number of things” that his committee wants to review, and added: “Everything’s on the table.”

“I really think one of the keys is the report we got just right before – just a few weeks ago – was with the 26 confidential human sources.”

The two continued to recount false conspiracy theories before their audiences of GOP lawmakers – and Fox viewers – related to the Jan. 6 attack, including Hannity saying that President Donald Trump “authorized use” of the National Guard “days before” the riot, while “Pelosi did nothing.”

“Not to mention the number of false things that committee put out on me, on you, on so many people,” Jordan told Hannity about the Jan. 6 select committee. “So yeah, I think there’s [sic] some unanswered questions we have to get to there, so we will look at that.”

Before he concluded the interview, the Fox News host called Jordan and House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-KY), who was being interviewed next to him, “rock stars” and offered his own piece of advice.

“I would let the American people know the truth, pardon or not, and let’s see if they tell the truth when they have, to under oath,” Hannity said.

A report from the Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General found "no evidence" to support the claims that undercover FBI agents provoked the Capitol riot.>

<Democratic-led states and civil rights groups filed a slew of lawsuits challenging U.S. President Donald Trump's bid to roll back birthright citizenship on Tuesday in an early bid by his opponents to block his agenda in court.

After his inauguration on Monday, Trump, a Republican, ordered U.S. agencies to refuse to recognize the citizenship of children born in the U.S. if neither their mother or father is a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident.

Twenty-two Democratic-led states along with the District of Columbia and city of San Francisco filed a pair of lawsuits in federal courts in Boston and Seattle asserting Trump had violated the U.S. Constitution.

Two similar cases were filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, immigrant organizations and an expectant mother in the hours after Trump signed the executive order, kicking off the first major court fight of his administration.

The lawsuits take aim at a central piece of Trump's sweeping immigration crackdown. If allowed to stand, Trump's order would for the first time deny more than 150,000 children born annually in the United States the right to citizenship, said the office of Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell.

"President Trump does not have the authority to take away constitutional rights," she said in a statement.

Losing out on citizenship would prevent those individuals from having access to federal programs like Medicaid health insurance and, when they become older, from working lawfully or voting, the states say.

"Today's immediate lawsuit sends a clear message to the Trump administration that we will stand up for our residents and their basic constitutional rights," New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said in a statement.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

More lawsuits by Democratic-led states and advocacy groups challenging other aspects of Trump's agenda are expected, with cases already on file challenging the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency and an order Trump signed weakening job protections for civil servants.

Three of the four lawsuits were filed in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Any rulings from judges in those New England states would be reviewed by the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the only federal appeals court whose active judges are all Democratic appointees.

Four states filed a separate case in Washington state, which the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has jurisdiction over. That court often stymied Trump's first term agenda, though its ideological makeup has shifted to the right thanks to judicial appointments he made.

The lawsuits argue that Trump's executive order violated the right enshrined in the Citizenship Clause of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment that provides that anyone born in the United States is considered a citizen.

The complaints cite the U.S. Supreme Court's 1898 ruling in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, a decision holding that children born in the United States to non-citizen parents are entitled to U.S. citizenship.

The plaintiffs challenging the order include a woman living in Massachusetts identified only as "O. Doe" who is in the country through temporary protected status and is due to give birth in March.

Temporary protected status is available to people whose home countries have experienced natural disasters, armed conflicts or other extraordinary events and currently covers more than 1 million people from 17 nations.

Several other lawsuits challenging aspects of Trump's other early executive actions are pending.

The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents federal government employees in 37 agencies and departments, late on Monday filed a lawsuit challenging an order Trump signed that makes it easier to fire thousands of federal agency employees and replace them with political loyalists.>

1. Its, It's

2. Affect, Effect

3. Then, Than

4. Fewer, Less

5. Who, Whom

6. Me, Myself, I

7. Lay, Lie

8. Compliment, Complement

9. Stationary, Stationery

10. Advice, Advise

https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle...

<the iniquity>, do you ever get any of these? <fredthestalker>?

<Don’t let celebratory rallies, fawning tweets on X or glitzy inaugural balls fool you. Today’s Republicans are warring with their fellow Republicans. That GOP civil war’s about to be on full display in the nation’s capital.

Senior Republicans on Capitol Hill are prepared to follow Donald Trump’s lead on most anything, but that’s not good enough for newly empowered MAGA mavericks. They say their mandate is to upend business as usual in Washington, including the Republican Party itself.

“We're not going to be quiet, no,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) — a former chair of the far-right Freedom Caucus — told Raw Story. “We're going to participate.”

Robust participation is one thing, rabble-rousing quite another. And veteran Republicans don’t trust their Freedom Caucus counterparts on Capitol Hill to be good faith actors, especially after a mere eight Republicans ingloriously dethroned former Speaker Kevin McCarthy in 2023.

GOP leaders may exude optimism in front of the cameras, but in private, party elders are bracing for an array of bloody brawls they sense just over the horizon.

Unless Trump whips up a miracle, this new, GOP-controlled Congress is set on a collision course with itself.

The MAGA movement in Congress has mastered the politics of disruption, but that’s a fairly useless tool for a majority party tasked with actually governing.

Without a foil like President Joe Biden in the White House in this new, 119th Congress, veteran Republicans fear self-righteous Freedom Caucus antics will derail the party’s agenda. The old guard’s frustration with the party’s bomb-throwing newbies is becoming increasingly palpable at the Capitol as the full weight of being in charge of all of Washington is slowly sinking in.

“They’ll demand things they’ll never vote for — whatever they demand — because they’re not conservatives, they're celebrities,” a senior Republican lawmaker complained to Raw Story on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution.

With the GOP maintaining a slim, few-seat majority in the House, many Republicans expect Speaker Mike Johnson to have to once again reach across the aisle just to fund the government, which many Republicans blame on the Freedom Caucus.

“What they consistently do is, they force us to the left,” the veteran GOP lawmaker continued. “Some of them may not know it — they’re just useful idiots — but there’s a few that are pretty smart there and they know it. They’re not conservatives, they know they force us to the left.”

That kind of talk is sacrilegious to Freedom Caucus faithful. They accuse many senior Republicans of colluding with Democrats to maintain the status quo.

“You still have a uniparty here in Washington, D.C., and we've been pushing back on that since before I got into Congress,” Biggs said.

“Do you feel like you’re making progress?” Raw Story pressed.

“Yeah. So you’re talking about a MAGA-type of revolution and you got a mandate,” Biggs said. “[Republicans] have told me, ‘well, I insist on amnesty’ — what? ‘I can’t make cuts to spending’ — okay? But, you know, the mandates are there.”

Old-school Republicans may have hopped aboard the Trump train late, but they argue they’re better situated to advance Trump’s priorities than his far-right allies.

"Look, there's a small group here who are the self-proclaimed, you know, 'conservatives' that are always looking at ways to get clicks and to raise money. They do so by just being critical of the Republican Party," Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) told Raw Story. "That's not gonna change."

“They feel like their mandate is to upend the Republican Party,” Raw Story pressed.

“The Republican Party won the election,” Diaz-Balart said. “We're gonna have to stick together, and nobody gets 100% of what they want. So we'll see what that small group of people does.”

They may be a small group, but the speaker can only afford a few GOP defections to pass any bill these days. So they’re also a supremely empowered group.

Since November’s bruising losses, Democrats haven’t been smiling much.

As they self-reflect, many have been studying up on today’s far-right. And they sense Trump’s already making critical mistakes, like replacing his populist campaign promises with a gang of wealthy elitists.

"Right now, I'm listening to Steve Bannon, who seems much more connected to the populist message and the notion of taking care of the Americans who have been left behind,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) told Raw Story.

So far, Trump’s tapped an unprecedented 16 billionaires to either Senate-confirmed posts—from Education Secretary-nominee Linda McMahon to Commerce Secretary-nominee Howard Lutnick—or to be his unconfirmed brain trust—think Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy....>

<....They’re not representative of Trump's base, even if they’re similar to Trump himself.

“I always thought that the populism was a campaign ploy — not real for a billionaire from New York City who inherited an enormous amount of wealth,” Beyer said. “I've never thought that his personal values matched the values of the American people. Most people don't cheat on their spouses. Most people pay their bills. Most people pay their taxes. Most people are not felons. None of that is very populist, right?"

Beyer isn’t alone. Other Democrats, like Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX), also sense a Trump-sized disconnect between the incoming administration and the voters who propelled the GOP back into power.

Besides Bannon, Escobar noticed the digital rants of fringe-right provocateur Laura Loomer, who’s been blowing up her X feed with anti-Musk and anti-Mark Zuckerberg diatribes.

“The Loomer and Bannon stuff tells me that the coalition is far more fragile than I think many of us understand. You can try to be all things to everyone, but that doesn’t last very long,” Escobar told Raw Story.

“So at some point, Trump and MAGA will have to decide whether, you know, they support the oligarchy or not,” Escobar continued. “You can't say you are going to help regular, everyday Americans deal with rising costs and be beholden to billionaires. It's impossible.”

“He wouldn't allow most of them within 1,000 feet of Mar-a-Lago”

To other Democrats, the staggering net worth of Trump’s new team — estimated to be upwards of $450 billion — is revealing.

“It exposes the core fraud of Trump — a guy who talks a big populist game, but at the end of the day is someone who is most comfortable living and hanging out at Mar-a-Lago with fellow billionaires,” Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA) told Raw Story. “The irony is, for all the people that go to his rallies, he wouldn't allow most of them within 1,000 feet of Mar-a-Lago.”

It’s more than just the commas. The access and power corporations and business leaders are being granted is new and disturbing to Boyle. But, at the end of the day, he’s most alarmed by Musk’s control of social media juggernaut X.

“The fact that some super wealthy oligarch can then control the media, that is truly disturbing at a time in which there are few responsible gatekeepers to accurate information,” Boyle said. “This is really unprecedented, because Carnegie and the robber barons, they didn't have power in the Grover Cleveland administration or the William McKinley administration, so this is quite unique and quite dangerous.”

Others, like Rep. Ami Bera (D-CA), fear Trump’s surrounding himself with immature adults.

“So there also is a California kind of, this tech bro culture. Really relatively young folks that became wildly successful, wildly wealthy, but, I would argue, sometimes seem to be stuck in adolescence in this echo chamber,” Bera told Raw Story. “How are they going to be able to relate to the steelworker in Ohio? I don't know. We'll see.”

That said, Bera says Democrats would be foolish to obstruct like the party did back in 2017 merely. He says his party has a lot of listening to do.

"It's a different Republican Party, and, I think, shame on us as Democrats if we don't actually try to understand it, understand what's happening in America and then try to meet that party," Bera said.

Bera’s already looking for common ground. He supports some of the ideas United Nations Secretary-nominee Elise Stefanik is proposing to modernize the decades-old organization. Bera argues Democrats should welcome ideas to streamline government that may come out of the (unofficial) Department of Government Efficiency—or DOGE—and its leader, Elon Musk.

"Obviously, incredibly brilliant, successful, disruptive innovator. So there are places if they're willing to meet us — I won't even say the 50-yard line, but the 40-yard line, right? They’re in the majority — where we could find areas of agreement," Bera said. "So I do think there's ways to improve government efficiency. There's ways to disrupt government, to make it more accessible to the average American.”

And Republicans surely are set on disruption in Trump’s second term, and they’re eager to follow the lead of their party’s standard bearer.

While different factions of the Republican Party are battling over which direction the party should go in, party leaders say their differences are overblown.

And, publicly at least, GOP leaders laugh off fears of an entrenched oligarchy and “tech industrial complex” like outgoing President Joe Biden warned the nation of in his farewell address to the nation....>

<....“Well, the greatest change agent of this generation is a billionaire from Manhattan named Donald Trump,” Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) told Raw Story. “So, no. I'm not worried.”

“But there is tension?” Raw Story asked.

“There’s always tension,” Hudson, who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee (or NRCC), said. “Tension gets you good policy.”

“Yeah?” Raw Story pressed. “Tell that to [fmr. Speaker Kevin] McCarthy.”

“That was more than tension,” Hudson said through a hearty laugh.

“But the party is still torn between, say, isolationism and [neo-cons]?” Raw Story asked. “Or do you think this past election settled a lot of those differences?”

“Divergent views, I think that’s healthy. And the Republican Party’s always been like that,” Hudson contended. “We're not a lockstep party, and it's frustrating at times. It takes longer to get there. But, I mean — and I'm serious — I think you get to better policy in the end. So I'm not worried about it.”

But the American people are worried. At least when it comes to their grocery prices, which is a debate expected to test Republicans early in the new administration.

Most Republicans are wary of Trump’s repeated promises to slap stiff tariffs on goods coming into the U.S. But, at least for now, most aren’t airing those grievances too loudly as they wait to see what Trump’s actual tariffs are.

Republicans in Congress shouldn’t get too worked up over tariffs — which economists warn will increase the cost of consumer goods — because, ultimately, it’s not their decision to make, according to Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT).

"There's [sic] a lot of strong positions on tariffs, but it's not — and I mentioned this to my colleagues — it's not the purview of Congress," Zinke — who served as Trump’s first secretary of the Interior in his last administration — told Raw Story. “That would be the president.”

While Zinke coaches his congressional colleagues to let Trump take charge on international tariff policies, he knows clashes between Congress and the White House are inevitable, especially when it comes to the federal budget.

With Musk and Ramaswamy looking to slash some $2 trillion from federal spending, Zinke predicts their recommendations will ruffle many Republican feathers on Capitol Hill.

"If there is a battleground, it's really, quite frankly, fiscal policy," Zinke said. "All the Republicans are united on the border, but the fiscal side, you know, how much do you add to spending? It's really not about the debt. The debt is what we have spent, right? It's about the debts — like, you get a credit card bill, but that's the debt. We gotta look at the spending side, and that's what the concern is."

The former cabinet secretary expects a GOP clash early in this new Congress when Trump and his team try to cut corporate taxes even further than they did in his first administration.

Democrats may be needed to help the Republican majorities fund the government and raise the debt ceiling. And if GOP leaders need them, Democratic leaders are vowing to extract some wins in exchange.

But in recent years, the two parties’ agendas have grown increasingly further apart, even as both party’s bases have gotten louder and less forgiving if their leaders in Washington work across the aisle.

That’s why instead of protesting Trump at every turn like they did in 2017, this go round, as much as possible, Democrats are preparing to keep their distance and watch all these GOP battles play out in real-time.

Democrats are already dusting off their old income inequality playbook and are just waiting for the right moment to pounce after the GOP stumbles.

With so many billionaires in and around Trump’s White House, they expect early opportunities to woo back the working and middle-class voters who abandoned them in 2024.

“We have nothing against people becoming wealthy on good ideas, hard work and innovation in this country,” House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA) told Raw Story. “That is part of the American success story, but rigging the system against hard-working Americans is not.”>

<President Donald Trump may have signaled that he's growing tired of his so-called co-president Elon Musk, according to MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle.

The president on Tuesday announced a joint venture investing up to $500 billion for infrastructure related to artificial intelligence by a new partnership formed by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank, but the CEO of one of those companies is the archenemy to Musk, who poured at least $277 million of his own money into Trump's re-election campaign and has been at his side as a key adviser since the election.

"I will make one, maybe it's a political point but it's worth pointing out, [at] the press conference yesterday, [OpenAI CEO] Sam Altman, standing behind the presidential seal with president Trump standing next to him," said CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin. "Think about that just for a moment, and the reason I say think about that, Sam Altman is Elon Musk's nemesis, and there has been a long conversation about whether we thought that Elon Musk was going to have influence over president Trump, and he was going to use his influence to thwart and hurt his enemies, and I think it was a surprise. I don't know if it's surprising or not, but I think it was remarkable, just worth remarking upon that Sam Altman and president Trump standing there next to each other. I should also mention Sam Altman spent $1 million during the inauguration, but the truth is that clearly the president, president Trump, behind this in a major way, and I think that that has a lot of folks sort of looking at this, trying to understand what it all means."

"Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough agreed the partnership, which Musk undercut Wednesday by claiming the tech companies didn't have the money to carry out its plans, was noteworthy, saying the two moguls had feuded publicly since he pulled out of the company behind the AI chatbot ChatGPT.

"We've heard about this rivalry for quite some time and Elon Musk, using his position close to Donald Trump to sort of box Sam Altman out," Scarborough said. "So, yeah, I would say that is news. I don't think we over-read it, but certainly all of the words that were written talking about how Musk is going to be able to keep Altman away from the incoming president disproven yesterday in that press conference. So I'm just saying when I saw it, I was like, whoa – that's news."

Ruhle thought the news conference was noteworthy for another reason.

"I think it's less about Sam Altman and it's more about Donald Trump saying, 'I'm the daddy here, there's only one president.' Remember, over the last few weeks, as Elon Musk has been glued to Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, going to have an office just potentially down the road from the White House, this is Donald Trump potentially putting Elon Musk on notice and saying to the world, 'There are not co-presidents, I'm the only one in charge – don't get too comfortable here, Elon, Sam's around the corner.'"

"But I would say Elon Musk saying, 'I don't even think they have the money,' this is something important," she added. "It's not that Joe Biden was anti-AI – he wasn't. His executive order was extensive, he talked about it in his final remarks. [National security adviser] Jake Sullivan did, too. One of the things that the former White House acknowledged, they didn't have the money yet. So Donald Trump gets in the job, pulls out all the regulations, right... So I just think what Trump announced yesterday kind of encapsulates the two administrations, that Joe Biden was potentially too careful, too bound by so many restrictions that some would say flew in the face of innovation, and Donald Trump rolls in and it's like, 'Money or not, I'm announcing it – we're doing it, animal spirits. Let's go.' It was the two of them in a nutshell.">

<Of course the marxist homosexuals were admitted unknowingly. Neither marxists nor homosexuals are permitted to enter the priesthood. Therefore their entry into the seminary had to be by deceit. Now, you quote Paul's letter to Timothy in an attempt to discredit the celibate priesthood, yet both Paul and Timothy remained celibate!

I think that's what's called an "own goal" George.

And Pope Gregory only confirmed the tradition held since at least the 4th century Synod of Elvira (305).

So again:

THE POPE DOES *NOT* CREATE NEW TRADITION!

So, to sum up:-

(1) Homosexual priests slithered into the seminaries as part of the communist infiltration throughout the 20th century, just like in many western governments.

(2) The scandal of clerical pedophilia is a cancer in the Church which is being cut out, and the perpetrators and their enablers, exposed and excommunicated.

(3) Bad bishops are as old as the Church itself, going all the way back to Judas. It does not adversely affect the truth of the Gospel or the teaching magisterium.

(4) Papal infallibility applies only under strict conditions and for the purpose of clarifying Apostolic teaching. It is always in conformity with the Bible, Tradition and the 2,000 year old teaching magisterium of the Church.

Now of course George, having been confronted with the truth of the Catholic Church, which is at odds with your degenerate lifestyle, you now wish to scurry away like a scared little rabbit and continue with your depravity and perversion....

....Hope you learnt something.>

<If it were possible to short a public figure with maximum leverage, Elon Musk would surely be the top target. The political and enterprise value of “Musk Inc” is built on treacherous ideological sands.

You can short Tesla as an impure proxy for the larger Icarus story. The shares have almost tripled since April to $430 (£350) even though the company no longer has the sort of growth story that can justify a price-to-earnings ratio of 110.

Tesla has suffered its first year of falling car sales worldwide. It is running into ferocious competition on price and quality in China and is rapidly losing German market share in electric vehicles (EV) to BMW and Mercedes

The company is valued at $1.37 trillion, four times the entire auto industry of Germany, the greatest engineering nation on earth.

Such anomalies do not last for long.

The driving rationale for the parabolic spike in the share price since Donald Trump’s election is the belief that Musk will enjoy techno-regulatory privilege and crony capitalist favour. The Tesla chief was still in good enough grace to earn a spot with the Trump family at the inauguration, where he could be seen on Monday gazing with fixed attention at the cupola of the Capitol.

His privilege is recompense for spending a quarter of $1bn helping Trump over the line in swing states – whether by fostering free speech or by exploiting the black arts of algorithmic propaganda, depends on your angle of view.

The problem with the market’s political bet on Tesla is that Musk has already made himself arch-enemy of the Maga priesthood, who increasingly regard him as a globalist carpet-bagger. They think he is trying to subvert the ethno-cultural revival of the American nation state, spreading money around to capture the Trump movement for his own purposes.

“He is a truly evil person. His sole objective is to become a trillionaire. He will do anything related to make sure that his companies are protected,” said Steve Bannon, the Gramscian chief ideologue of the Maga cause, in an interview with Italy’s Corriere della Sera this month.

“Quite frankly, the people around Trump are tired of it. We’ve seen peak Elon, his intrusive nature, his lack of understanding of the true issues,” said Bannon.

“Before, because of all the money he put in, I was prepared to tolerate it: not any longer. His half-baked ideas are really about the implementation of techno-feudalism on a global scale,” he said.

The final rupture was over Musk’s backing for H-1B skilled visas, mostly for Indians working for “big tech”. But it would have happened sooner or later because the Maga theology of primordial traditionalism is at odds with everything about the Silicon Valley plutocracy.

Bannon later told the New York Times that the clash goes to the core of competing belief systems. “I would almost argue it’s an unbridgeable gap,” he said.

The tech Right salivates over network states run on blockchain, seeking to re-invent human life and society upon new technological foundations. This threatens the essence of the traditional nation, bound together by what Abraham Lincoln called the mystic chords of memory.

“These people are techno-feudalists and it’s a dangerous thing. It’s going to be the populist-nationalist movement that’ll take them on and break them,” said Bannon. Bluster or not, can one dispute his larger point?

Musk has sought to deflect the Maga backlash by plunging into European politics and cosying up to Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and Britain’s Reform. I doubt that many will be fooled by this crude ploy.

Trump can try to stand above the two warring factions of his coalition but ultimately he may have to sacrifice Musk if he wants to hold on to his mass base, which he will not find hard to do. Washington is too small for two such egos....>

<....Musk may be sitting on a future gold mine with SpaceX and his network of satellites. But what is Tesla worth once Donald Trump tires of him? He has already alienated his core clientele in the West. What eco-liberal wants to be seen driving a Tesla any more? The brand has lost its cachet among that well-heeled tribe of EV early adopters and the market is bursting with other models to choose from.

Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP, Europe’s largest pension fund, has sold all its $600m worth of Tesla shares, ostensibly over Musk’s blocked $56bn pay package – but undoubtedly for a mix of reasons.

Adam Jonas, Morgan Stanley’s star analyst, is keeping the faith. He has just raised his price target from $600 to $800 in his bull scenario, premised on sales of 7m vehicles a year by 2030. The underlying car business would be a small fraction of this.

The real share value would be in everything else: driverless robotaxis, streaming media, software upgrades, navigation services, robots and so forth. “While autos still matter, we see embodied AI as the driver,” he said.

The $800 case is that Tesla is so far ahead on data and autonomous driving that it will carry away the prize in the late 2020s. But Musk still has no Level 4 approval for Full Self-Driving capabilities and no robotaxi with software good enough for unsupervised driving. Rival Waymo is already running 100,000 paid rides a week, albeit “geo-constrained” to limited areas.

You can hail a driverless robotaxi today in Wuhan. WeDrive is rolling out services across Chinese cities. It is patchy but the Chinese are catching up fast. BYD is investing $14bn in self-driving tech. It already dominates the Chinese market for sales of EVs and hybrids.

Tesla’s sales in China are still rising but not nearly as fast as the overall EV market. They made up 37pc of the company’s worldwide deliveries last year, though the price wars have been brutal. The Shanghai plant exports the Model 3 to Europe, which now faces an extra (modest) tariff. Musk is about to lose the $7,500 tax credit for EVs in the US as well, and that threatens profit margins on his coming affordable model.

Perhaps he will talk Trump out of his economic war with China but I strongly doubt it. If he does not, he is so closely associated with the new White House that his Chinese operations will become a prime target for retaliation.

Besides, Xi Jinping wants China to dominate the world market for EVs, self-driving AI, humanoid robots, fixed energy storage and everything that Tesla makes.

Musk has manoeuvred himself into an invidious position, caught between the Chinese Communist Party and the Maga movement and reliant on the fickle favour of a volatile American president. Those Icarus wings of beeswax and feathers have flown too close to the sun.>

<Pete Hegseth’s nomination as secretary of defense has continued to barrel toward confirmation, additional stream of details of his patent unfitness for office be damned. Indeed, Senate Republicans seem determined to elevate Donald Trump’s nominee to one of the most powerful positions in government despite more reporting around his alleged rampant abuse of women and alcohol, with a full vote expected as soon as this Friday after he was advanced out of the Armed Services Committee this week on a party-line vote. Having declined to take seriously their obligation to investigate reports of his unfitness, Republicans on the committee are now refusing to credit named witnesses who are offering them credible information by taking the position that everything negative disclosed about their man is by definition a lie.

Last week at his confirmation hearing, Hegseth stated under oath that every single allegation of misconduct was an “anonymous smear.” One of those “anonymous smears” came from his own mother. And now, according to new reporting in the New York Times, Danielle Diettrich Hegseth, his former sister-in-law, “submitted a sworn statement to senators on Tuesday that accused Mr. Hegseth … of being so ‘abusive’ toward his second wife that she once hid in a closet from him and had a safe word to call for help if she needed to get away from him.” Diettrich Hegseth says she spoke with FBI agents during Hegseth’s background investigation, but her information didn’t make its way into the report received on the Hill.

According to the Times, the former wife of Hegseth’s brother filed this affidavit describing the future head of the Pentagon as having exhibited “erratic and aggressive” behavior that caused his then-wife to fear for her safety. That document, reviewed by the Armed Services Committee and the Times, contains yet more allegations that Hegseth “frequently drank to excess both in public and private, including on one occasion … when he was wearing his military uniform.” It further alleged that his second wife hid from him in her closet, and that he believed women should not work or be allowed to vote.

Not one thing about these new allegations is surprising. The New Yorker, the New York Times, and other media outlets have reported consistently and broadly about Hegseth’s alcoholism and mistreatment of women, as well as his revanchist views about Muslims and frequent, public blackout drinking. There is also an allegation of sexual assault that was never charged but was reported and investigated, around which both parties have signed a nondisclosure agreement. What is, frankly, remarkable about Diettrich Hegseth’s new allegations is that she has affixed her name to them, and that they are in the possession of the FBI and the Senate. All of this would have, in a saner time, ended the nominee’s chances at confirmation. (Hegseth has said he will not drink while serving as secretary of defense if he’s confirmed; his ex-wife Samantha allegedly told the FBI that “He drinks more often than he doesn’t.”)

But what is even more staggering is that in the face of this new information, the decision has been taken by Senate Republicans to discredit it, ignore it, and to charge ahead with a confirmation in spite of it. As the Times puts it, “just hours after the affidavit was filed, Republican leaders plowed ahead on Tuesday night to schedule a vote on Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation, with several rank-and-file members of the party dismissing the sworn statement as a desperate attempt at character assassination that would fail.”

Let us be clear. Yet again. Senate confirmation hearings are not criminal trials. This is, fundamentally, a job interview to determine a nominee’s fitness for office. There is no “American presumption of innocence,” and there is no standard of proof that shifts a legal burden to the accuser to prove her claims. These confirmation hearings are systems created, at least in theory, to test facts and allegations and to ask questions about those allegations. The hearings, put simply, are meant to be directed at learning the truth. Yet despite the U.S. Senate’s awesome power to amass evidence, call witnesses, test allegations, and create a record, the Republicans of the Armed Services Committee have elected to dismiss every part of the new reporting as false. Senate Republicans are ignoring red-flag indicators and will not be able to profess surprise if more surfaces or the behaviors continue once Hegseth is in office....>

<....Per the Times, Sen. Roger Wicker, who chairs the Armed Services Committee, said that “he did not expect the new disclosures to threaten Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation, and that the Senate would work into the weekend if necessary to ensure his swift approval.” As he explained to reporters, “I think the nomination is going to go forward,” adding that while he had not reviewed the affidavit, he had “grave doubts as to the substance” and believed that its author “has an ax to grind.”

So there we have it. The man who chairs this committee, never having reviewed the affidavit, dismisses it as false, and brushes off the witness, a woman, as not credible. Despite the fact that the nominee’s claim of a series of “anonymous smears” is further proven categorically false, yet another extremely credible allegation is dismissed out of hand without any further inquiry because, as is almost the norm now, women are not credited as truthful, nor given a full opportunity to be heard.

Hegseth’s ex-wife has offered up a carefully lawyered response to this latest piece of information from her former sister-in-law: “First and foremost, I have not and will not comment [sic] on my marriage to Pete Hegseth. I do not have representatives speaking on my behalf, nor have I ever asked anyone to share or speak about the details of my marriage on my behalf, whether it be a reporter, a committee member, a transition team member, etc.” She further told Diettrich Hegseth, “I do not believe your information to be accurate, and I have cc’d my lawyer,” adding, “There was no physical abuse in my marriage.”

Saying there was no physical abuse does little to counter the sworn allegations by Danielle Diettrich Hegseth. She did not say that Hegseth physically abused his former wife, so that statement actually does not prove their falsity at all. Her affidavit claims that Hegseth was abusive toward his ex-wife, which is far broader than physical abuse, and equally suggestive of a lack of fitness to serve.

If Republican senators were committed to fulfilling their obligation to advise and consent to President Trump’s nominees, they would want to know the truth; indeed they would insist upon it. At a minimum, it would be of interest to Republican members of the Armed Services Committee that the man who has been nominated to run the Defense Department is a known abuser of alcohol who is frequently abusive and threatening toward women. It increasingly appears that the campaign promise to “protect all women” can only be achieved by silencing them first. Hegseth’s record should be disqualifying. Instead the Republican posture is that anyone who brings forward evidence against Trump’s pick to head the Pentagon is presumptively a discredited liar, not to be believed. Perhaps Senate Republicans believe that the sooner the confirmation happens, the faster they can immunize their nominee from the truth. But if you are only willing to accept the version of the facts that comes from your own team, your hearing fails to fulfill your constitutional obligations. It’s merely a rubber stamp and a whitewash.

Assuming this week plays out as it appears destined to, once Hegseth is in office, all of us will have to live with a system of fact-finding that now has absolutely no interest in actual facts.>

<Senators on Monday confirmed one of their own, Marco Rubio of Florida, to be the next secretary of state and President Donald Trump’s first Cabinet member. Based on her performance in her own hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., may soon follow suit as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. When answering questions from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, there were only glimpses of the MAGA warrior she has molded herself into over the years.

Instead, Stefanik was informed about the workings of the United Nations and sounded overall like she’d represent some other administration than the one currently taking shape. Her appearance was at times a throwback to the performance that one of her predecessors, Nikki Haley, gave during her own confirmation hearing eight years ago. But unlike some of her fellow nominees, the gantlet of Senate confirmation will likely be the easy part for Stefanik. The job itself will be much harder.

At the U.N., Stefanik will have to contend with the rampage that Trump has already begun against anything resembling international constraints on U.S. interests. Among the many executive actions from his first day, Trump signed a pair of orders that fundamentally weaken American foreign leadership and will make it more likely that even allies think twice before signing on to any agreements with the United States.

The first executive order instructs the U.N. ambassador to immediately begin the process of withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on climate change — again. Trump pulled out of the treaty in his first administration as well, before Joe Biden reversed his decision upon taking office in 2021. This new executive order also orders America to pull out of any agreements made under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and cuts U.S. funding to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and various climate financing schemes.

(Since there’s no acting official tapped to head the U.S. mission to the U.N. right now, submitting the necessary paperwork to the relevant bodies will fall on Stefanik once she is confirmed.)

Trump also issued an order to facilitate America’s withdrawal from the World Health Organization. Trump likewise began this process previously, submitting his intention to leave the global health body in July 2020 during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Under domestic law, the process to leave the WHO requires a one-year notice from the U.S. and that “the financial obligations of the United States to the organization shall be met in full for the organization’s current fiscal year.”

There’s ambiguity in the order, though, about whether the Trump administration intends to comply with that law. It’s not clear if the White House thinks the original one-year timer kept going despite Biden’s order revoking the withdrawal. It also isn’t clear whether Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget will immediately withhold the funding that’s due to the WHO despite what the law says....>

<....The phrase “strategic ambiguity” is often used to describe American policy toward China and Taiwan, where the U.S. never makes entirely clear how far it will go toward defending the island from the mainland. But that’s a very specific case of balancing competing interests. What we’re seeing from Trump is a much more random ambiguity that is bad for international relations. Withholding clarity gives other actors the chance to fill in the blanks in ways that may lead to misunderstandings that can be downright dangerous.

The back-and-forth over the Paris Agreement and the WHO and whichever other international bodies come under fire next is detrimental to the U.S. in both the short and long run. In the short term, it is entirely self-defeating to remove America’s diplomats and resources from a pool of resources that are meant to combat truly global threats. Pandemics and climate change don’t care about lines drawn on a map, as we’ve seen over the last five years.

In the long term, treaties and other vehicles of international law are meant to be the antithesis of ambiguity. Each word is carefully chosen in high-stakes diplomatic meetings and enforced based on the idea that, absent a specified deadline, they go on in perpetuity. The liberal rules-based order that the United States has overseen since the end of World War II has depended on the idea that these agreements are negotiated in good faith with nations that intend to abide by those words.

In the past, with rare exceptions, treaties and other international agreements have mostly held firm under successive administrations. That’s not been the case over the last decade, as changes in U.S. administrations have prompted a global whiplash and uncertainty over just how long any agreement might last. In the absence of long-term guarantees, it is hard to see how states will want to come to the negotiating table with America, absent the exact sort of bullying threats that Trump specializes in issuing but often fails on following through on.

This is the task Stefanik will be charged with undertaking at the United Nations should the Senate confirm her. Her predecessors in the last Trump administration had to convince their fellow diplomats that they could speak on the president’s behalf. This time around, Stefanik will have to convince allies that any new agreement with the U.S. is worth the paper that it’s printed on.>

This is the biggest side effect of hanging out with a pathological liar. Trust me, it’s not you, it’s them, as shown by research from the Journal of Neurology....>

<....15. Their manipulation is hard to prove

Most people who are in the company of a pathological liar will eventually feel manipulated and used, even though they may not always have proof of it. If you’re getting that vibe, they may be a pathological liar.

16. They play people off each other

If this happens, watch out! Pathological liars often will stir up drama for drama’s sake, and they may be lying about you to other people. If you notice this, it may be time to talk to people to find out what’s going on.

17. They show no remorse when caught

This is the “pathological” aspect of pathological lying, I’d wager. People who habitually lie don’t show remorse.

18. They cancel dates at the last minute or get flaky

Do they suddenly drop off the face of the Earth for no apparent reason? This could be a sign they're a pathological liar, simply because most people who have this condition also hide addictions, including an addiction to cheating.

19. Their personality changes depending on who they're around

Though we all have this trait, with pathological liars it’s more pronounced. This is because pathological liars need to have people see themselves as perfect, and everyone’s idea of perfection is different.

20. They have an addiction of some sort

Pathological liars are very rarely, if ever, liars for lying’s sake alone. They often are hiding addictions or a severe personality disorder that triggers the lying.>

How many of these do <you> fulfil, <fredthestalker>? All of them?

Hahahahaha!!

#heartlandscumowned

<The Jerry Jones' Dallas Cowboys move differently than the rest of the NFL's 31 teams. They're "all in" on "getting it done with less."

Dallas parted ways with head coach Mike McCarthy after five seasons, and then Jones decided to promote McCarthy's offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer to be the Cowboys' next head coach . Jones did so despite Schottenheimer not calling the plays in each of his last two seasons as the team's OC since that was a responsibility McCarthy famously retook after Kellen Moore departed to be the Los Angeles Chargers offensive coordinator in 2023.

Jones, who is now 82-years-old, has indicated with his actions that he prefers comfort and profit margins over a true "all in" pursuit of another Super Bowl. The Cowboys have spent the fewest amount of money on free agents, $20.47 million per OverTheCap.com, since the conclusion of last season's Super Bowl, and Dallas signed Schottenheimer, a first-time NFL head coach, to a four-year deal that will likely be one the league's lowest in compensation given the unique circumstances around Schottenheimer's promotion. The Cowboys notably didn't interview any of the NFL's top candidates this hiring cycle including: former Lions OC/now-Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson, now-New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel, former Lions DC/now-New York Jets head coach Aaron Glenn (a former Cowboys corner), Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores, six-time Super Bowl head coach Bill Belichick or Washington Commanders offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury. Dallas interviewed four candidates before settling on their current offensive coordinator down the hall. No other team attempted to interview Schottenheimer this hiring cycle, so the 51-year-old didn't have any real leverage when hammering out the specifics of his new deal.

However, Jones gets to say he prioritized continuity for quarterback Dak Prescott, the 2023 NFL MVP runner-up who Jones made the league's highest-paid player by waiting until hours before Week 1 against the Cleveland Browns to re-sign to a four-year, $240 million extension. In reality, Jones valued providing continuity for himself in hiring someone already in his building. Schottenheimer does have 12 years of offensive play-calling experience as an offensive coordinator with the New York Jets (2006-2011), Rams (2012-2014) and Seattle Seahawks (2018-2020). He spent the 2021 season as the quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator for first overall pick quarterback Trevor Lawrence on Urban Meyer's Jacksonville Jaguars staff before crash-landing in Dallas as a consultant in 2022.

It's fair to wonder if Jones' lack of investment in free agency last offseason had to do with not wanting to fully commit to McCarthy as a lame duck while he was working on extensions for Prescott and All-Pro wide receiver CeeDee Lamb. Now, it's clear taking the comfortable route instead of the one involving the effort of bringing in external, more expensive help is the way the Cowboys operate now. Three-time All-Pro edge rusher Micah Parsons attempted to prevent this operating procedure in 2025 by kicking off his extension negotiations with Jones on Jan. 10 in the owner's suite at the Cotton Bowl College Football Playoff semifinal. Parsons is pushing to get his deal done ASAP so that Jones can maneuver around the salary cap to add more pieces and depth around himself, Prescott and Lamb in an effort to avoid another season ravaged by injury in 2025.

What Jones showed by hiring Schottenheimer is that his Cowboys are going to continue down the road they have traveled most since Pro Football Hall of Fame head coach Jimmy Johnson's departure in 1994: his way or the highway. He said as much himself after the team's Week 18 defeat against the Washington Commanders that ran their record to 7-10. Jones declared he bought the Cowboys to run them his way for life. The hiring of Schottenheimer is even more evidence of this reality: Jones the owner being "all in" on Jones the general manager.

"No, no," Jones said postgame in Week 18 when asked if he would consider giving anyone else the title of Cowboys general manager. "I bought the team. I think the first thing that came out of my mouth, anybody here that was at that press conference? OK, somebody asked 'did you buy this for your kids?' I said, 'Hell no. I bought it for me, and I didn't buy an investment. I bought an occupation. I bought something I was going to do. I was 46. I bought something that I was going to do for the rest of my life, and that's what I'm doing.' So no, the facts are that since I have to decide where the money is spent, then you might as well cut all the bull**** out. That's who's making the call anyway.">

<The Commanders are one of the coolest stories in sports right now. Unless you're Dan Snyder apparently! The former Washington owner, who presided over decades of disastrous football and somehow even worse off-field stuff, isn't exactly keen on his old team rising from the ashes in the second year under new ownership and making a deep run.

Seth Wickersham and Don Van Natta, in a lengthy ESPN article about Snyder, heard from sources who described Snyder's feelings through a friend that had dinner with Snyder during the season in London and came back stateside with a clear message:

"He f----ng hates it," Snyder's dinner companion told the colleague.

I mean, if you followed Snyder's history as an NFL owner for any length of time whatsoever, this shouldn't be that surprising. He was a vindictive little man when he owned Washington's football team, refusing to comply with public requests to change the name, violating all kinds of league rules both written and unwritten (he and the Cowboys broke ranks and spent like madmen during the uncapped year of 2010 and suffered punishment as a result) and also created an incredibly hostile and inappropriate work environment that the league fined him for prior to the sale ... and during the sale itself!

That sale, by the way, almost never happened. The league essentially forced Snyder's hand and, according to the report from ESPN, Snyder did everything he possibly could to prevent the sale from happening.

When I say everything, I mean everything. Snyder, according to ESPN, discussed the possibility of announcing "that he had years earlier given up alcohol, and to say that much of his alleged misbehavior over the years that caused so much league and fellow owner angst happened while he was drunk."

Snyder reportedly targeted $6 billion as the sale price for the Washington franchise, thinking no one would be willing to meet that price and he'd be able to keep the team. It took new majority owner Josh Harris finding 20 (!) partners to get up to Snyder's selling price.

The deal came together anyway, of course, but when the deal was about to go through, Snyder reportedly refused to hand over his bank information to Harris so he could transfer the money. In case that's not clear: Snyder was so petulant about the sale of the team he wouldn't volunteer a set of numbers that would allow someone to send him SIX BILLION DOLLARS.

The aforementioned fine from the NFL -- a whopping $60 million, dipping the net sale price below Snyder's target of $6 billion -- didn't help matters.>

Dan Snyder can choke on it.

<Presidential historian Alexis Coe has predicted a perilous four years for the Trump administration, as well as the GOP as a whole.

In an op-ed for MSNBC, Coe said former President Grover Cleveland’s second term – which she described as “a tragedy in four years” – should serve as a “cautionary tale” for Donald Trump.

The battle ahead extends far beyond Washington. “Who owns the media owns politics,” Ellis said.

“In 1892, Cleveland, like Trump in 2024, was resurrected by unwavering party loyalty despite losing the previous election,” Coe wrote. “Both men, separated by time but united in their disdain for the ‘establishment,’ demanded fealty with the fervor of medieval kings suffering from lead poisoning.”

But both leaders, she explained, proved to be incapable of handling national crises.

“For Cleveland, a Democrat, it was the Panic of 1893, a severe economic depression triggered by railroad overbuilding and shaky financing, which set off a series of bank failures. Within months, unemployment skyrocketed to nearly 20%, over 15,000 companies and 500 banks failed, and farmers in the South and Midwest faced ruin as crop prices plummeted.”

She explained that he made it all worse with his inflexibility, refusing to part from the gold standard and fiscal conservatism.

Trump’s version of this crisis was COVID-19, she said, which he faced “with a mix of self-absorption and pseudoscience that would make snake oil salesmen blush.”

For his next term, she predicted “domestic and global chaos” due to his “erratic policy shifts on tariffs, immigration and foreign relations,” adding that while Cleveland stubbornly refused to change and Trump changes far too frequently, both habits “risk the same disastrous end: a party in disarray.”

She explained that the midterm elections during Cleveland’s second term saw the largest House of Representatives swing in U.S. history, with Republicans gaining 130 seats. Senate Republicans also ended up with a 10-seat majority.

“If Trump’s second term is a disaster right out of the gate, his party may take a beating in the 2026 midterms,” she said, adding that conditions in the country are ripe for a third party to potentially gain popularity right now.

“Comebacks can be pyrrhic victories, triumphs that contain the seeds of their own destruction. Cleveland’s presidency imploded in a shower of broken promises and shattered alliances. So, too, might Trump’s — and with it, the future of a party that has hitched its wagon to a reality star that may well be a supernova in disguise. The stage is set for a performance that could reshape not just Trump’s legacy, but the very foundations of the Republican Party.”

She concluded by reminding readers that “in the theater of American politics, the most tragic plays are often those we’ve seen before.”>

<Donald Trump had been US president again for less than 15 minutes when he made his first factually dubious claim.

“The vicious, violent and unfair weaponisation of the justice department and our government will end,” he said early in his inaugural address. There is no evidence that former president Joe Biden ordered the justice department to prosecute Trump and no violence took place.

The return of Trump to the White House for his second presidential term is also the return of what one critic called “America’s liar-in-chief”. His first week in office brought a cascade of false and misleading claims about immigration, the economy, electric vehicles, the Panama Canal, his election defeat in 2020 and the January 6 insurrection that followed.

Some see the brazen embrace of mendacity as both habitual and strategic.

“It’s a continuation of Donald Trump’s brand,” said Tara Setmayer, a former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill. “He knows that sunlight is the best disinfectant so he’s going to continue to lie to mask what he’s doing. If you can undermine institutions and credible sources of information, you can get away with lying and deceiving people. We’re watching that mass delusion happen right before our eyes in the Trump administration 2.0.”

During his first term as president, Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims over four years, according to a count by the Washington Post. He maintained a similar pace during last year’s presidential election campaign. On Monday, as he was sworn in for a second time at the US Capitol in Washington, he made clear it will be business as usual.

Trump said in his inaugural address the US government “fails to protect our magnificent, law-abiding American citizens but provides sanctuary and protection for dangerous criminals, many from prisons and mental institutions that have illegally entered our country from all over the world”. In truth there is no evidence other countries are sending their criminals or the mentally ill across the border.

The 47th president also promised to direct his cabinet to defeat “record inflation” and rapidly bring down costs and prices. Inflation peaked at 9.1% under Biden in June 2022 but has been much higher in other historical periods, such as a more than 14% rate in 1980.

In discussing his desire for the US to take back the Panama Canal, Trump said: “American ships are being severely overcharged and not treated fairly in any way, shape or form, and that includes the United States navy. And, above all, China is operating the Panama Canal.” Officials in Panama have denied Trump’s claims that China is operating the canal and that the US is being overcharged.

Shortly after the inauguration ceremony, the onslaught against reality continued. In remarks to an overflow audience at the Capitol’s Emancipation Hall, Trump claimed: “2020, by the way, that election was totally rigged.” Authorities who reviewed the election – including Trump’s own attorney general – concluded the election was fair.

Trump alleged that then House speaker Nancy Pelosi “turned down the offer of 10,000 soldiers” on 6 January 2021, when a violent mob stormed the US Capitol. Yet he issued no such order or formal request for National Guard troops before or during the rioting.

The president asserted that Biden had pardoned “what is it, 33 murderers, absolute murderers, the worst murderers. You know, when you get the death sentence in the United States, you have to be bad.” Biden announced last month that he was commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row; a commutation is not a pardon and does not exonerate the person.

Trump continued to fire off misleading assertions, wild exaggerations and blatant lies all week in a series of freewheeling exchanges with reporters. In a Fox News interview in the Oval Office he sought to explain his blanket pardon of January 6 rioters by dismissing violent attacks on police as “very minor incidents”....>