<Instead of encouraging the public to wait for all the facts before jumping to conclusions about what led to the mid-air collision between a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines flight, President Donald Trump offered an array of baseless, conflicting theories during a Thursday morning news conference that left many in the White House briefing room stunned by his recklessness.

While the emergency rescue efforts continue in the icy Potomoc [sic] River, it appears unlikely that any of the 64 passengers on the flight, or the three soldiers on the helicopter, survived, according to Wall Street Journal.

After suggesting the blame lay with the helicopter pilot — “The people in the helicopter should’ve seen where they were going,” he said, repeating a claim he made on social media hours after the crash — Trump contradicted that theory by implying an unqualified air traffic controller was at fault.

“The initiative is part of the FAA diversity and inclusion hiring plan,” he said, referring to the agency’s initiatives for hiring air traffic controllers. “Think of that. The initiative is part of the FAA diversity and inclusion hiring plan.”

“A group within the FAA determined the workforce was too white,” Trump continued. “They actually came out with a directive saying it’s too white.”

Trump falsely claimed the initiative originated under President Joe Biden and his transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg. NBC’s Peter Alexander informed the president that the policy dates back to 2013.

“It was there for the entirety of your administration, too,” Alexander said. “So my question is, why didn’t you change the policy during your first administration?”

Trump falsely claimed he had implemented the change, attacking the reporter’s credibility. He also lashed out at CNN’s Kaitlan Collins when she asked if he was “getting ahead” of the investigation, calling her question “not very smart.”

Reporters continued to press the president, with journalist Mary Bruce asking if he felt the crash was somehow caused by diversity hiring.

“What evidence do you have to support those claims?” Bruce continued.

“It just could have been,” Trump replied. “We have a high standard. We’ve had a higher, much higher standard than anybody else. And there are things where you have to go by brainpower, you have to go by psychological quality and psychological quality is a very important element of it. These are various very powerful tests that we put to use, and they were terminated by Biden. And Biden went by a standard that’s the exact opposite.”

He then admitted, “So we don’t know.”

After repeating his assertion that the helicopter pilot should’ve seen the plane coming, he pivoted back to his new favorite boogeyman: Diversity, equity and inclusion.

“But certainly for an air traffic controller, we want the brightest, the smartest, the sharpest,” he said. “We want somebody that’s psychologically superior, and that’s what we’re going to have.”

Another, unidentified reporter followed up by asking the president how, if he didn’t think the air traffic controllers were at fault, “you could come to the conclusion that diversity had something to do with the crash?”

“Because I have common sense, OK?” Trump replied. “And, unfortunately, a lot of people don’t. “

CNN aviation correspondent Pete Muntean called the president’s remarks “unprofessional, unpresidential, inconsiderate of the status of this investigation, but frankly … unhinged that he could even say with any sort of certainty that diversity, equity and inclusion policies had any part to play in this accident.”>

The CGs double standard of fairness is incredibly appalling to allow that corner to constantly shag others while the Vermont perv himself reeks on a daily basis of sexual obscenities and dishonest claims. If champion of anything, Al is a leading smear artist while his own filthy sexual habits, beliefs and promotions are very much soiled yet promoted. Only a low life like Al would defend Bill Clinton and Jeffrey Epstein while rebuking others. What a sick human being.>

Still in a snit over yesterday's assault getting the bum's rush?

You'll get over it--or not, <fredremf>.

<The many controversial people appointed to the Trump administration, from Elon Musk to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have at least one thing in common: They dislike and distrust experts.

While anti-intellectualism and populism are nothing new in American life, there has hardly been an administration as seemingly committed to these worldviews.

Take President Donald Trump’s decision to nominate Kennedy, a well-known vaccine skeptic, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy, whose Senate confirmation hearing is Jan. 29, 2025, epitomizes the new American political ethos of populism and anti-intellectualism, or the idea that people hold negative feelings toward not just scientific research but those who produce it.

Anti-intellectual attacks on the scientific community have been increasing, and have become more partisan, in recent years.

For instance, Trump denigrated scientific experts on the campaign trail and in his first term in office. He called climate science a “hoax” and public health officials in his administration “idiots.”

This rhetoric filtered into public discussion, as seen in viral social media posts mocking and attacking scientists like Dr. Anthony Fauci, or anti-mask protesters confronting health officials at public meetings and elsewhere.

Trump and Kennedy have cast doubt on vaccine safety and the medical scientific establishment. As far back as the Republican primary debates in 2016, Trump falsely asserted that childhood vaccines cause autism, in defiance of scientific consensus on the issue.

Kennedy’s long-term vaccine skepticism has also been well documented, though he himself denies it. More recently, he has been presenting himself as “pro-vaccine safety,” as one Republican senator put it, on the eve of Kennedy’s confirmation hearing.

A researcher works in the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health. National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, National Institutes of Health

Kennedy has mirrored Trump’s anti-intellectual rhetoric by referring to government health agency culture as “corrupt” and the agencies themselves as “sock puppets.”

If confirmed, Kennedy has vowed to turn this anti-intellectual rhetoric into action. He wants to replace over 600 employees in the National Institutes of Health with his own hires. He has also suggested cutting entire departments.

During one interview, Kennedy said, “In some categories, there are entire departments, like the nutrition department at the FDA, that are – that have to go.”

In lockstep with this anti-intellectual movement is a version of populism that people like RFK Jr. and Trump both espouse.

Populism is a worldview that pits average citizens against “the elites.” Who the elites are varies depending on the context, but in the contemporary political climate in the U.S., establishment politicians, scientists and organizations like pharmaceutical companies or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are frequently portrayed as such.

For instance, right-wing populists often portray government health agencies as colluding with multinational pharmaceutical companies to impose excessive regulations, mandate medical interventions and restrict personal freedoms.

Left-wing populists expose how Big Pharma manipulates the health care system, using their immense wealth and political influence to put profits over people, deliberately keeping lifesaving medications overpriced and out of reach – all of which has been said by politicians like Bernie Sanders.

The goal of a populist is to portray these elites as the enemy of the people and to root out the perceived “corruption” of the elites.

This worldview doesn’t just appeal to the far right. Historically in the United States, populism has been more of a force on the political left. To this day, it is present on the left through Sanders and similar politicians who rail against wealth inequality and the interests of the “millionaire class.”....>

<....In short, the Trump administration’s populist and anti-intellectual worldview does not map cleanly onto the liberal-conservative ideological divide in the U.S. That is why Kennedy, a lifelong Democrat and nephew of a Democratic president, might become a Cabinet member for a Republican president.

The cross-ideological appeal of populism and anti-intellectualism also partly explains why praise for Trump’s selection of Kennedy to head the Department of Health and Human Services came from all corners of society. Republican senators Ron Johnson and Josh Hawley lauded the move, as did basketball star Rudy Gobert and Colorado’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis.

Even former President Barack Obama once considered Kennedy for a Cabinet post in 2008.

Why, then, is disdain for scientific experts appealing to so many Americans?

Much of the public supports this worldview because of perceived ineffectiveness and moral wrongs made by the elites. Factors such as the opioid crisis encouraged by predatory pharmaceutical companies, public confusion and dissatisfaction with changing health guidance in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the frequently prohibitive cost of health care and medicine have given some Americans reason to question their trust in science and medicine.

Populists have embraced popular and science-backed policies that align with an anti-elite stance. Kennedy, for example, supports decreasing the amount of ultra-processed foods in public school lunches and reducing toxic chemicals in the food supply and natural environment. These stances are backed by scientific evidence about how to improve public health. At the same time, they point to the harmful actions of a perceived corrupt elite – the profit-driven food industry.

It is, of course, reasonable to want to hold accountable both public officials for their policy decisions and scientists and pharmaceutical companies who engage in unethical behavior. Scientists should by no means be immune from scrutiny.

Examining, for example, what public health experts got wrong during the COVID-19 pandemic would be tremendously helpful from the standpoint of preparing for future public health crises, but also from the standpoint of rebuilding public trust in science, experts and institutions.

However, the Trump administration does not appear to be interested in pursuing good faith assessments. And Trump’s victory means he gets to implement his vision and appoint people he wants to carry it out. But words have consequences, and we have seen the impact of anti-vaccine rhetoric during the COVID-19 pandemic, where “red” counties and states had significantly lower vaccine intent and uptake compared with the “blue” counterparts.

Therefore, despite sounding appealing, Kennedy’s signature slogan, “Make America Healthy Again,” could – in discouraging policies and behaviors that have been proven effective against diseases and their crippling or deadly outcomes – bring about a true public health crisis.>

<Senate Republicans are growing increasingly unnerved over President Donald Trump’s eyebrow-raising decision to revoke government-funded security details for top former administration officials but reportedly haven’t agreed on how to transmit that message to the president.

That’s according to a new report in Politico, which highlighted the difficult task Republicans face in attempting to change Trump’s mind, especially with the lingering Iranian-backed threat still a reality for Trump critics Gen. Mark Milley and former National Security Adviser John Bolton.

“The main challenge, according to two senior GOP congressional aides and a former Trump administration official familiar with the discussions, is that Republicans fear Trump will dig in his heels if they confront him too aggressively with their concern about the officials — especially since Trump has feuded publicly with two of them,” the report stated.

The controversial security issue, which immediately stirred outrage from political observers after Trump began issuing the orders, was discussed Tuesday at a Senate GOP policy lunch, Politico said.

And while no plan was officially agreed on, some in attendance floated the idea that Republicans emphasize the urgent need for security for “the two aides they insist were always loyal to Trump — former Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo and Brian Hook, who was the State Department’s special representative for Iran — though all four former Trump officials have been left equally exposed to Iran-backed assassins.”

One GOP Senate aide at the meeting pointed out Sen. Tom Cotton’s Fox News appearance on Sunday when asked “about how they thought that message could best be conveyed to Trump.”

“Senator Cotton handled it perfectly as the messenger, the message itself (carefully but seriously worded), and the venue itself (FOX News Sunday),” the individual granted anonymity for wrote in an email to Politico.

“If a Republican gave a press conference right now and came out guns blazing on the president, that’s not going to work,” Politico reported a senior GOP Senate aide said. “Obviously, you have to do this delicately to get it done.">

<CBS parent company Paramount has entered discussions with President Donald Trump to settle a $10 billion lawsuit brought by the president in a legal maneuver that many legal experts have ridiculed as meritless, according to a New York Times report published Thursday night.

Trump sued after CBS aired an edited interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, who at the time was Trump’s opponent in the presidential race.

The Times reported that Shari Redstone, who is Paramount’s controlling shareholder, stands to make billions on a pending sale of the company to Skydance:

Settlement discussions between representatives of Paramount and Mr. Trump are now underway, according to three people with knowledge of the talks. There is no assurance, though, that they will result in a deal, and it is unclear what the terms of any such deal might include.

Shari Redstone, Paramount’s controlling shareholder, strongly supports the effort to settle, according to two people with knowledge of her thinking. Ms. Redstone stands to clear billions of dollars on the sale of Paramount, the media empire founded by her father Sumner Redstone, in a deal with Skydance, an entertainment company backed by the billionaire Larry Ellison and run by his son David.

A settlement would be an extraordinary concession by a major U.S. media company to a sitting president, especially in a case in which there is no evidence that the network got facts wrong or damaged the plaintiff’s reputation.

The heart of Trump’s lawsuit centers on a question directed at Harris about the Middle East from Bill Whitaker. A preview of her response aired during Face the Nation was different from the response viewers of 60 Minutes saw. Trump’s lawyers argued CBS made Harris look better in primetime by airing a crisper response.

“CBS News said that Ms. Harris had given one lengthy answer to Mr. Whitaker’s question, and that the network followed standard journalistic practice by airing a different portion of her answer in prime-time because of time constraints,” the Times said.

On Wednesday, it was reported that Meta and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg agreed to pay Trump $25 million after the president sued the company for suspending his account after inciting the 2021 Capitol riot. In December, ABC News settled a defamation suit brought by Trump for $15 million.>

Jaysus, wot a craven lot.

<At least 12 people pardoned by President Donald Trump in his first and second terms—including two last week—have since been apprehended by the police.

The White House has been contacted via email for comment.

The number of pardons that went to Trump's political allies, former aides, celebrities and military contractors in his first term, and the blanket pardon of Capitol rioters which is unpopular with several Republicans, has led some to question whether the president chooses to overlook law and justice when it comes to his friends.

Combating crime is seen as important to 92 percent of Americans, per a recent YouGov poll, and Trump ran in both 2016 and 2024 on a platform of law and justice.

Trump pardoned 238 people in his first term and has already pardoned more than 1,500 Capitol rioters following his reelection, as well as seven people involved in blockading a Michigan abortion clinic in 2020.

At least 10 people pardoned between 2016 to 2021, and two people pardoned last week, were charged again on new crimes after their presidential release from prison. A third Capitol rioter remains on the run from police due to a prior warrant.

Two Capitol rioters have had run-ins with the police, one fatal, within a week of being pardoned. January 6 participant Matthew Huttle was fatally shot by an officer after allegedly resisting arrest at a traffic stop in Indiana.

According to local police, Huttle "was in possession of a firearm," during the stop, but it is unclear whether he attempted to use it during the arrest.

The second Capitol rioter to be rearrested is Daniel Ball, who was taken into custody for a federal gun charge from 2023 shortly after his release from prison.

Despite being pardoned over his actions on January 6—where Ball allegedly threw an explosive into the Capitol, causing hearing loss among police officers which lasted for months—Ball still has a criminal record for domestic violence battery by strangulation in 2017 and resisting law enforcement with violence and battery in 2021, meaning his possession of a .22 caliber rifle and ammunition put him in violation of federal gun laws.

A third Capitol rioter is currently on the run from Texas police due to a preexisting arrest warrant from 2016. Andrew Taake is wanted on charges of online solicitation of a minor.

Despite the Harris County district attorney asking the federal prison Taake was being held in to keep him there so that he could be rearrested by state police following his pardon, the facility released him.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement: "The people who invaded the Capitol on January 6th, whether they committed violence or not, should not have been pardoned. They unlawfully broke into the Capitol to stop the peaceful transfer of power. What they did is a serious crime.

"Donald Trump is ushering in a Golden Age for people that break the law and attempt to overthrow the government."

Margaret Love, a former U.S. pardon attorney, told ABC in 2022: "President Trump bypassed the formal and orderly Justice Department process in favor of an informal and fairly chaotic White House operation, relying in some cases on his personal views and in others on recommendations from people he knew or who gained access to him in various ways. So it might have been predicted that some who made it through that lax gauntlet were going to get in trouble again."

Pardoned rioter Taylor James Johnatakis previously told Newsweek: "I feel very grateful to President Trump for making good on his word. There's some people who didn't think he would keep his word, but we never doubted he would. I'm very glad he did what he did; we couldn't be more grateful to him."

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has warned of more violence from released Capitol rioters, including members of the Proud Boys, Three Percenters, and Oath Keepers militia groups.

The Three Percenters has seen a rise in recruitment following January 6, per reporting from Pro Publica.

One released rioter said he plans on buying "some m**************** guns" now that he has been freed from prison.

The son of a rioter who testified against his father has said he is "terrified" over his release and has moved to protect himself.>

When even Lindsey Graham, one of Hump's favourite leccaculo, is warning of consequences, might be time to pay heed.

<MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell on Thursday knocked President Donald Trump’s “completely indiscriminate” act of throwing around accusations at a press briefing tied to the deadly plane crash in Washington, D.C.

“It is the first time in history that a president in the United States has assigned blame for an aviation accident on his own, immediately, based entirely on his own profoundly, ignorant, prejudiced guess,” said O’Donnell of Trump, who blamed diversity, equity and inclusion efforts for the midair collision.

O’Donnell stacked Trump’s move up against Democrats who didn’t blame Ronald Reagan for Air Florida Flight 90 crashing into a D.C. bridge and falling into an icy Potomac River below in 1982. The crash left 78 people dead.

The crash occurred just months after the then-president made what the MSNBC host called “the single stupidest, tough guy move” on domestic policy in the ’80s when he fired thousands of air traffic controllers amid a labor dispute.

O’Donnell then went after Trump for thinking he knew the “answers” to Wednesday’s crash despite an investigation just getting underway.

“Every previous president in reacting to such events, such tragedies, has always begun with sympathy including the only president who could have been blamed for an accidental plane crash and wasn’t,” he declared before playing a 1982 clip of Reagan remarking on Lenny Skutnik, a bystander to the Air Florida crash.

Skutnik, a Congressional Budget Office employee at the time of the crash, dived into the Potomac River and pulled Priscilla Tirado out of the Potomac River.

Reagan would later invite Skutnik to his State of the Union address less than two weeks later.

“Lenny Skutnik was the worst thing you can be in Donald Trump’s Washington,” said O’Donnell of the federal worker who became “an American hero” and served the government for decades before his retirement in 2010.

O’Donnell turned to a 1982 article published seven months after the crash in The New York Times where Skutnik was asked if he’d do the rescue again.

“I separate it into two parts,” Skutnik told the Times. “The rescue, I’d do again in a minute. But all the stuff that came after, the fame and all that, I could do without. If it ever happened again, I wish the cameras weren’t there. The whole thing has been kind of blown out of proportion.”

O’Donnell weighed in on Skutnik’s quote, “There’s nothing about Lenny Skutnik — not his humility, not his heroism, nothing about him that Donald Trump could ever understand.”>

Like this, <fredwhoreson>?

<Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) offered her take on White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s Friday briefing and wildly called for the foreign press to be removed from the briefing room after a reporter with a French accent caught her attention.

Greene shared a post from the briefing from a MAGA influence with over a million followers who praised Leavitt, “Dear Lord these reporters haven’t got the memo yet. Karoline Leavitt is not here to play around. She was pressed about DEI in the aviation field and her answer was PERFECT!”

The influencer then quoted Leavitt saying, “When you are flying on an airplane with your loved ones, do you pray that your plane lands safely and gets you to your destination or do pray that your pilot has a certain skin color? I think we all know the answer to that question.”

Greene also gave Leavitt props and wrote she “is doing a wonderful job! Bringing sanity and common sense and throwing it in the faces of the nasty legacy media.”

The Georgia Republican, however, then turned her attention to the accent of the reporter who asked the question in the clip.

“How about that accent from that reporter? I think we need to throw out all the foreign press! American media first!” Greene wrote in all seriousness.>

<Donald Trump's press secretary on Friday defended the president's use of an expletive during a briefing on Washington air tragedy, explaining that it was one of the ways in which he connected with ordinary Americans.

And Karoline Leavitt used her position on the podium to mock the White House press corps to its face.

Her appearance in the briefing provided yet another reminder of how the seat of American power has been transformed in two short weeks.

A day earlier, Trump delivered an update on the air crash, railing against the previous administration and its transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, as a 'disaster' with 'a good line of @#$%*&!#.'

Leavitt was asked whether this was part of a deliberate communications strategy.

'I think one of the things that the American people love most about this president is that he often says what they are thinking, but sometimes lack the courage to say themselves,' she said,

'And I think yesterday at this podium, you heard President Trump express great frustration, perhaps even anger, with the previous administration's policies, many of which have led to the crises that our country is currently facing and that this president is focused on fixing.'

Buttigieg had blasted the president, saying he should be 'leading, not lying,' after his wild briefing room appearance.

She defended the president's use of an expletive a day earlier, and said he was giving voice to ordinary Americans and to his own frustrations about the state of the country She defended the president's use of an expletive a day earlier, and said he was giving voice to ordinary Americans and to his own frustrations about the state of the country This administration is opening up the briefing room to non-conventional media organizations, including podcasters and rightwing social media stars.

Leavitt said she had received 10,000 submissions for four seats at the side of the briefing room, usually reserved for White House staff.

Friday's occupant was John Ashbrook, co-host of the Ruthless podcast. He served up a softball, asking whether the media was out of touch with ordinary Americans and their views on deportations.

'Out of touch?' she asked with a raised eyebrow, before listing exactly how out of touch they were complete with reference to opinion polls showing a majority of Americans in support of deportations.

Worse was to come, when she was asked about the CIA recently concluding that the most likely explanation was that it leaked from a Chinese lab.

She claimed that he was roundly mocked in the briefing room by journalists.

'Said he was spewing conspiracy theories. He was not,' she continued, warming to her theme.

'We now know that to be the confirmable truth.

'It took many years for it to come out, but the president was right in this instance, again.'

Leavitt also used her appearance to defend the president's comments that diversity hires had an impact on air safety.

But there were more conventional announcements from the podium.

Leavitt confirmed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would have a 'working meeting' at the White House on Tuesday.

And she revealed that the president was ready to go ahead with plans to impose 25 percent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico and 10 percent tariffs on goods from China effective on Saturday, the White House said.>

<The Department of Defense ordered a handful of news media outlets to vacate their offices inside the Pentagon so that they may be replaced by some conservative press organizations.

In a memo issued on Friday, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense John Ullyot said the Pentagon wanted to “broaden access to the limited space of the Correspondents Corridor to outlets that have not previously enjoyed the privilege and journalistic value of working from physical office space in the Pentagon.”

It was not clear what if any role Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth played in the decision.

The department’s “new Annual Media Rotation Program” will begin on Feb. 14, and will require The New York Times, NBC News, National Public Radio, and Politico to vacate “their physical office space effective” on that date.

In their stead, The New York Post, One America News Network, Breitbart News, and HuffPost will move into the vacated office space. The memo makes clear that the outlets getting the boot “will remain as full members of the Pentagon Press Corps.

The Post, OAN, and Breitbart are all extremely pro-Trump organizations, though the inclusion of HuffPost – a historically liberal website – is curious. The president has long railed against legacy media outlets such as The New York Times and NBC News. On Thursday, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr sent a letter to NPR and PBS to inform them that the agency is investigating them for airing sponsorships.

“I am concerned that NPR and PBS broadcasts could be violating federal law by airing commercials,” Carr wrote of the standard practice. “In particular, it is possible that NPR and PBS member stations are broadcasting underwriting announcements that cross the line into prohibited commercial advertisements.”>

<There's a famous quote from the movie Road House that's useful for all sorts of situations: "Be nice. Until it's time to not be nice." The people of Canada, by and large, are famous the world over for being very nice. But clearly, the current tariff situation in the U.S. has some of them getting ready to not be nice.

And at least one top politician in Canada is prepared to go directly after Tesla as a result.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, the country's Liberal Party leadership candidate, Chrystia Freeland, suggested 100% tariffs be applied to a number of U.S.-sourced goods in response to President Trump's threatened tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports. Freeland said those could include wine, beer and all Teslas, specifically. And yes, this is because of Tesla CEO's financial and operational support of Trump, Freeland said.

"We need to be very targeted, very surgical, very precise," Freeland told the news outlet. "We need to look through and say who is supporting Trump and how can we make them pay a price for a tariff attack on Canada."

Tesla's EVs sold in Canada are made in the U.S. as well as China. Canadian tariffs would then raise their prices in that country, leading EV buyers to turn to other automakers instead.

Freeland added: "One of the characteristics of the Trump administration is they like to traffic in uncertainty," she said. "There are lots of reports about there being internal debates in the U.S. (administration), so let's use that to our advantage. And let's put some cards on the table and be very clear that if they hit us, we will hit them back."

Freeland, Canada's former finance minister, is running for the Liberal Party leadership spot currently held by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Late last year, Freeland resigned from her finance minister post in part over disagreements on how to respond to Trump's economic threads.

Musk was Trump's largest financier during the campaign and is now leading his efforts to reduce the U.S. federal government workforce, complete with similar tactics used to do mass layoffs at Twitter, which he purchased and renamed X.

Broadly speaking, Canada has seen quicker EV adoption than the U.S. In the third quarter of 2024, nearly 17% of new cars sold in Canada—about one in six—were all-electric, compared to the 8% the U.S. finished the year at. Quebec in particular has strong incentives that have driven significant EV adoption. Not surprisingly, Tesla is the top-selling EV brand in Canada with the Model Y and Model 3 leading by a wide margin. More recent statistics aren't available, but in 2023 Tesla sold at least 60,000 of those two models alone in Canada. So while that's around 10% of what Tesla sells in the U.S. annually, a presumptive price spike from tariffs would certainly hurt Tesla in America's neighbor to the north.

That situation would also come after Tesla's first full year of global sales declines, and a time when many buyers and current Tesla owners are fleeing from the brand in response to Musk's political maneuvering and multiple public controversies.

Trump's 25% tariff on imports from Canada, China and Mexico are set to begin this weekend. There was little mention of tariffs on Tesla's fourth-quarter earnings call this week, save for a brief statement by CFO Vaibhav Taneja. "There's a lot of uncertainty around tariffs," Taneja said. "Over the years, we've tried to localize our supply chain in every market, but we are still very reliant on parts from across the world for all our businesses. Therefore, the imposition of tariffs, which is very likely, will have an impact on our business and profitability."

And if more countries follow Freeland's suggestion and decide to penalize Tesla directly over Musk's ties to Trump, it could make these trade wars all the more personal for the billionaire CEO and the president alike.>

Payback's a <biyatch> and Chrystia Freeland is the biyatch.

Content here a problem, <fredthebore>? Choke on it!!

<[Event "2nd Harry Lyman Open"] [Site "Needham Mass"]
[Date "1999.01.08"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Kato, Tomihisa"]
[Black "Ivanov, Alexander"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "A03"]
[WhiteElo "2159"]
[BlackElo "2596"]

1.Nf3 d5 2.g3 c5 3.Bg2 Nc6 4.d4 Nf6 5.O-O Bf5 6.c4 dxc4 7.Qa4 Qd7 8.dxc5 Ne5 9.Qxd7+ Nexd7 10.Nc3 Nxc5 11.Be3 e6 12.Ne5 Rc8 13.Rac1 Be7 14.h3 h6 15.g4 Bh7 16.Nxc4 O-O 17.Rfd1 b6 18.Nb5 a6 19.Na7 Rc7 20.Nxb6 Rxa7 21.Bxc5 Bxc5 22.Rxc5 Be4 23.Bxe4 Nxe4 24.Rc6 Rb8 25.b3 a5 26.Nd7 Re8 27.f3 Ng5 28.Kg2 a4 29.h4 Nh7 30.b4 Rb7 31.a3 Ra8 32.e4 Nf8 33.Nc5 Rba7 34.h5 g6 35.b5 Re7 36.b6 Rb8 37.b7 gxh5 38.gxh5 Kg7 39.e5 Rexb7 40.Nxb7 Rxb7 41.Rd4 Rb5 42.Rg4+ Kh7 43.Rc7 Rb1 44.Rxf7+ Kh8 45.Rxf8+ Kh7 46.Rf7+ Kh8 47.Rxa4 Kg8 48.Rc7 Rb8 49.Raa7 Re8 50.Rg7+ Kh8 51.Rh7+ Kg8 52.Rag7+ Kf8 53.Rg6 1-0>

<This week, the Trump administration turned off federal spending for a couple of days, several of the most ludicrous Cabinet nominees in history had their confirmation hearings, there was a major plane crash in the nation’s capital, President Donald Trump gave his thoughts about the plane crash, a swing-state senator announced his retirement … like, we’ve got Elon Musk’s minions playing around with the machine that sends out government checks, but we didn’t even have space for it. (That’s because we wanted to make jokes about Bob Menendez instead.)

Let’s start, though, with the most closely watched senator of the moment.

1. Bill Cassidy

RFK Jr.’s decider.

Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy is the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and a respected voice within the Senate GOP on health care. He’s also a member of the Senate Finance Committee, which will vote on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to be Health and Human Services secretary. Cassidy has been watched closely since Kennedy’s nomination, but he hasn’t said much one way or another until this week. In Kennedy’s first hearing in Finance, Cassidy asked straightforward questions about how Kennedy would reform Medicare and Medicaid, and Kennedy tripped up. But it was in chairing the HELP hearing the following day that Cassidy fully came clean. The senator said, at the conclusion of the hearing, that he’s “struggled” with Kennedy’s nomination given his vaccine misinformation—and during the hearing, Kennedy could not unequivocally tell Cassidy that the measles and hepatitis B vaccines don’t cause autism. If Cassidy decides he can’t get that question answered, he could nuke Kennedy’s nomination in committee, or he could advance it, then saddle up with the ol’ RINO Gang (Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Mitch McConnell) to nuke it on the floor. The risk of either of these is that Cassidy, who’s up for reelection in 2026, would have a very unpleasant next two years. It seemed as if Washington Sen. Patty Murray, a Democratic member of HELP, was speaking directly to Cassidy when she said in the hearing that she understands “political realities” but wanted to “remind all my colleagues that by voting to confirm Mr. Kennedy, we would be telling our constituents he is worth listening to.” Cassidy may be deciding on his career this weekend.

2. Matthew Vaeth

Sorry for the prime placement, bud, but your name was on the memos.

While the administration has moved quickly in its initial stages to upend the federal government in every imaginable way, it had its first 2017-esque wipeout this week. On Monday, acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget Matthew Vaeth released a memo to federal agencies calling for a “temporary pause” of “all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance” affected by Trump’s executive orders. Since no one in government had a clue what this meant and erred on the side of caution, this amounted to a freeze of a huge slice of congressionally approved government spending: grants, loans, state Medicaid portals shutting down, dogs loving cats, and up being down. OMB tried to issue a clarifying memo the following day. Despite attempts to follow up with clarifications, Vaeth and OMB eventually issued a new memo rescinding the original memo. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, however, then tweeted that it was “NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze. It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo.” Confused about how to interpret this all? Join every other person working in or with the federal government....>

<3. Chris Murphy

A Democratic pulse? A Democratic pulse!

Trump has been able to get away with so much because his opposition is a loathed and exhausted Democratic Party that doesn’t know what to do or why to get out of bed in the morning. In that sense, the funding-freeze debacle was the first bit of good news for Democrats since November, at last serving as a galvanizing event for the remnants of the Resistance. Democrats in Congress got the message out about the consequences of the freeze for specific people and programs, as well as Trump’s overarching plan to seize the power of the purse from Congress. The senator who has most caught our attention this week is Chris Murphy, of Connecticut, demonstrating a sense of urgency and attention that had been missing. Speaking to reporters this week about the “temporary” nature of the spending freeze—before the OMB memo was walked back—Murphy explained why that was “@#$%*&!#,” pointing to the looming impoundment fight in the public and the courts. “This is a designed constitutional crisis,” he said. “He wants to seize control of this government, he wants to seize control of federal spending, so that he can hand money to his billionaire friends and people that are loyal to him, and he can suspend payments to states where loyalty is not pledged. Let’s see this for what it is: This is an attempt to seize power.” Democrats understandably are trying to be patient about where they pick and choose their battles with an administration that’s purposefully overwhelming them. This week, they finally began to draw lines.

4. Donald Trump

When all you have is a DEI hammer …

Tragedy struck Washington Wednesday night as a military helicopter collided with a commercial plane, sending both into the Potomac River and leaving no survivors. At first, the coordinated response between the D.C., Virginia, and federal government responders and officeholders was efficient, with each respective party offering its condolences to the families as the recovery and investigative efforts continued. The president’s press team even initially put out a grown-up statement. And then there was our president himself. He first sent out a midnight post just asking questions about why the helicopter seemed to be so intent on flying into the plane. By midday Thursday, though, the White House had settled on a message more along the lines of Betcha the pilot was a Black guy? The administration’s assault on diversity, equity, and inclusion has been a passion of these opening weeks. Trump said in a press conference that it was “common sense” to speculate that the accident was the fault of DEI policies, though he had no information whatsoever to back this up. Trump then signed a whipped-up executive action super-extra directing the Federal Aviation Administration to get to the bottom of all this diversity business, now that it is, in Trump’s mind, crashing planes. In practicality, what he was doing was trying to shape a distracting narrative before it registered with people that in only the second week of Trump’s presidency, we’ve had the first commercial plane crash in the United States in 16 years.

5. Kash Patel

I promise to be your friendly neighborhood FBI director!

The controversial nominee for FBI director also had his confirmation hearing this week and, like others, promised that he would not do what he has specifically said he wants to do many times over recent years. He denied that he has an “enemies list” in his book, instead calling it a “glossary.” Well, sure, it’s a glossary of “deep state” people he despises. He denied in his hearing that he’d seek retribution against figures in either the media or the government, despite having said in a 2023 podcast episode that “we will go out and find the conspirators not just in government but in the media” and that “we’re going to come after you … whether it’s criminally or civilly.” In Patel’s words on Thursday, “I have no interest, no desire, and will not, if confirmed, go backwards”; he added, “There will be no politicization at the FBI. There will be no retributive actions taken.” With lines like these, we have truly crossed from @#$%*&!# into unreality. The things Patel is saying he won’t do are the very things Patel was hired to do. The retribution against FBI agents and leaders is already underway and was picking up while Patel was in his hearing. What’s the point of these hearings if nominees can just recant everything they’ve said for the past several years? It’s to give Republican senators a small bit of cover to approve their nominations. Being convincing has nothing to do with it.>

<6. Gary Peters

Why? Was it something Washington said?

The senior senator from Michigan made the surprising announcement this week that he would not run for reelection in 2026. That sets up an open-seat swing-state race in the land of [asking the Chinese A.I. spy app about Michigan …] the capitalist hegemon’s critical automotive infrastructure. What gives? With the exception of his enemies, everyone loves Gary. He’s only 66—practically a Senate toddler. He’s the ranking member of a committee led by Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, which keeps his mind active. According to Peters, he wants to play around on his motorcycle more. And, sure, he would have had a competitive reelection, which is a lot less fun than a noncompetitive reelection. Even if he won, though, what would he be returning to? Another couple of years of Donald Trump’s Washington—and, odds are, in the Senate minority. Democrats need to net four Senate seat pickups in 2026 to take the majority, and only two, North Carolina and Maine, are within the general realm of competitiveness. (And don’t think Susan Collins isn’t looking forward to making Democrats learn their lesson again.) Democrats held out strong against the Republicans’ structural advantage in the Senate for a while, but that reality is beginning to sink its teeth in. It wouldn’t surprise us to see more Democrats like Peters, considering the potential of a lengthy stay in the minority, decide to hang it up. You want it, Sen. Secretary Mayor Pete? You can take it.

7. Bob Menendez

When you realize that you have always loved Donald Trump.

The former New Jersey senator was sentenced to 11 years in prison this week for accepting bribes. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and gold bars had been found during a raid on his home. It was not good! Facing such a grim stint in the hoosegow, Menendez responded to his sentence by flattering Trump. “President Trump is right,” Menendez said in a statement. “This process is political, and it’s corrupted to the core. I hope President Trump cleans up the cesspool and restores integrity to the system.” This statement was posted to X, and at the very end, he tagged @realDonaldTrump. In other words, he’s shamelessly angling for a pardon, just as indicted New York Mayor Eric Adams has been awfully flattering to the president in recent weeks. After ridiculous abuses from both Trump and Joe Biden in the past couple of months, we can’t recall something that’s so quickly jumped from the arena of law school debate to a national priority than the need for reforming the pardon power.>