The Donald Trump Score Card

'We haven't seen anything quite like Musk.' Here's what's behind his government blitz.

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"Riedl is an expert on federal budget policy and an avowed fiscal conservative.

“I’ve spent a quarter century building blueprints to significantly reduce government spending but it has to be done legally, constitutionally and through the democratic process,” Riedl said.

The growing opposition adds to a super charged atmosphere around Musk and DOGE, which has historical precedent but is taking government cost-cutting into uncharted territory."

 

https://www.politico.com/news/magaz...riffs-unconstitutional-supreme-court-00203178

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No president has ever used the IEEPA to impose tariffs before. In fact, the IEEPA was passed as part of a broader effort by Congress in the 1970s to limit the president’s ability to exercise emergency economic powers. The framework ultimately created, however, completely fails to rein in the president, according to Timothy Meyer, a law professor and expert on international trade law. And Trump is taking advantage of that failure by pushing beyond what the Constitution intended.

“This strikes me as unconstitutional,” Meyer told me. “It’s very difficult to see how the framers would’ve thought that it was constitutional for the president to simply have the power on the drop of a hat to impose an across-the-board 25 percent tariff on our major trading partners.”

 

Trump says he's committed to buying and owning Gaza.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/02/10/israel-war-gaza-ceasefire-hostages-news-hamas/

 

Federal court blocks Trump from sending Venezuelan immigrants to Gitmo.


Federal court blocks Trump admin from sending detained Venezuelan immigrants to Guantánamo Bay

 

Trump's wasteful orders that were intended to stop waste.


'Crippling crises': Evangelical leaders turn on Trump over 'damaging and wasteful' order

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“This is damaging and wasteful," Carey said. "Some of our members and partners are experiencing crippling cashflow crises, necessitating mass layoffs and abrupt termination of services with no time for responsible transitions."


"We affirm the goal of eliminating wasteful spending throughout government but caution against hastily pursued measures that will prove costly,” Carey said, as Business Insider reports. “The abrupt closure of many effective aid programs will mean that some of the money already spent will have been wasted. Commodities will be lost and food will rot, medicines expire. Other supplies may be stolen or misappropriated because the staff and the partners are not allowed to receive them.”

 

Retaliatory tariffs by China on the U.S. set to begin.

Trump will impose 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.


https://www.npr.org/2025/02/10/nx-s1-5292017/china-tariffs-us-retaliation-trump

 

Winter storms hit displaced in north Gaza, Israel expands West Bank raids

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Hamas condemns US President Donald Trump’s renewed offer to buy and own Gaza, warning him that tackling the “Palestinian issue with the mentality of a real estate dealer is a recipe for failure”.

 

Vance thinks Trump isn't answerable to the courts because he thinks bureaucrats are running the country and that's somehow a Constitutional crisis.


Has J.D. Vance "Raised the Specter of Open Disregard for Federal Court Rulings"?

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"I think that what Trump should do like if I was giving him one piece of advice, fire every single mid level bureaucrat, Every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people. And when the courts, because you will get taken to court, and then when the courts stop, you stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say, the Chief Justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it, because this is, I think, a constitutional level crisis if we continue to let bureaucrats control the entire country, even when Republicans win elections, then we've lost. We've just permanently lost. We've permanently given up."

 

Vance is trying to warm up the public into accepting that Musk and Trump are not answerable to the law and the courts.

Vance thinks that the courts can't interfere with what he calls Trump's 'legitimate power'.

Vance may think that Trump has 'legitimate power' to block birthright citizenship, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's legal. The courts decide what is legitimate.

 

Ttrump to impose 25% steel and aluminum tariffs and more are coming,


Trump says he will announce 25% steel and aluminum tariffs Monday, and more import duties are coming

 

Trump tariffs poised for courtroom showdown

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"Under the IEEPA, the president has power to impose economic restrictions based on a declaration of a national emergency where there is an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the national security, foreign policy or economy of the United States.

Unlike other laws authorizing tariffs, which require time to implement, the IEEPA allows for quick action by a president citing emergency powers. Congress does not precisely define what counts as an emergency under the statute.

In this case, Trump is relying on the threat of illegal immigration and illegal transport of fentanyl across the U.S. border to justify plans to impose a 25 percent tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico, as well as a 10 percent tariff on Canadian energy resources."

 

Trump tariffs poised for courtroom showdown

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"President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on neighboring Canada and Mexico rely on a novel interpretation of federal law that is prompting questions about whether his strategy could survive legal challenge.

Legal experts say the 1977 law Trump is using to implement the tariffs — the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA — gives the president broad economic authority, but has never been used to impose tariffs on foreign goods."

 

Trump has declared February 9 to be 'Gulf Of America Day'.


Donald Trump says he will announce tariffs on steel and aluminium

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"On the trip to New Orleans, Trump also signed an proclamation designating 9 February "Gulf of America" day to celebrate his order renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, as his plane crossed the body of water.

Mexico argues the US cannot legally change the Gulf's name because UN rules dictate that an individual country's sovereign territory only extends up to 12 nautical miles out from the coastline."

 

Trump’s acting chief of federal financial watchdog orders staff to pause activity

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"In his Saturday missive, Vought ordered staff to “cease all supervision and examination activity”, going a step further than a directive issued last week by the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, whom Trump had briefly put in charge after firing Rohit Chopra.

According to an internal email obtained by Reuters, the Washington CFPB headquarters will be closed for the coming week and all employees are to work remotely.


"The CFPB, which Congress created in the wake of the 2008 financial crash, supervises consumer-facing financial companies like banks, title lenders, mortgage originators and cash transfer services to prevent unfair, deceptive and abusive practices and other predatory conduct.

Vought’s order leaves much of that business activity without federal government oversight."

 

Trump’s acting chief of federal financial watchdog orders staff to pause activity

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"In a statement, Dennis Kelleher, head of Better Markets, which advocates for stricter government oversight of the financial sector, accused Trump of throwing his own voters “to the financial wolves.

“This latest attempt to kill the consumer bureau is another slap in the face for all Americans who depend on basic financial products and services, but especially for those in the multi-racial working-class coalition of Americans that helped elect President Trump,” Kelleher said."

 

Donald Trump says he will announce tariffs on steel and aluminium

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"President Donald Trump has said he will announce a 25% import tax on all steel and aluminium entering the US, a move that will have the biggest impact in Canada.

Trump also said that there would be an announcement later in the week about reciprocal tariffs on all countries that tax imports from the US, but he did not specify which nations would be targeted, or if there would be any exemptions.

"If they charge us, we charge them," Trump said."

 

Trump's current remarks are a far cry from his campaign rhetoric when he would end Putin's war on Ukraine within 24 hours as president-elect.

Now Trump isn't even sure when he might meet with Putin.

Maybe sometime down the road at an appropriate time. The same line he gave a reporter when asked when he will finally tell the American public what he was doing for hours while his riot ensued at the Capitol.

 

Trump tariffs poised for courtroom showdown

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Its original intent was to block trade and transactions with other countries — not impose taxes while allowing trade to continue.

“That’s why it doesn’t fit in an obvious way with what IEEPA has typically been used for,” Ku said.

 

Another indicator of Trump's mental derangement.


Trump Claims The Jan. 6 Cop-Assaulters He Pardoned Were The Ones Assaulted
The president's latest assertion came as his White House touted his support for first responders.
By S.V. Date
Feb 10, 2025, 12:12 PM EST

Trump Claims The Jan. 6 Cop-Assaulters He Pardoned Were The Ones Assaulted

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“I pardoned people who were assaulted themselves. They were assaulted by our government,” he said in a half-hour news conference with the reporters traveling with him on his flight to the Super Bowl on Sunday.

“That’s who were assaulted and they were treated unfairly. There’s never been a group of people in this country outside of maybe one instance I can think of, but I won’t get into it, that were treated more horribly than the people of J6,” he continued. “So no, I didn’t assault. They didn’t assault. They were assaulted, and what I did was a great thing for humanity.”

 

Smh……