Ukraine wants to convince Trump that it is not a charity case but a cost-effective and geostrategic opportunity that will enrich and secure the United States.
KYIV — As Ukraine prepares for the looming uncertainty of a new U.S. president, officials and business executives here are coming up with ways to sell Donald Trump on the idea that a strong Ukraine is useful to his own political goals — and expressing cautious optimism that he may act faster and more decisively than President Joe Biden.
Too bad Trump can’t be the dictator on Day One that the commies claimed he would be because the Republicans in Congress seem committed to making things much more difficult than they have to be. They need to get on board or get out of the way. We’ve lost one nominee already, and they are showing that familiar wobbliness that they always get about Pete Hegseth and several others. They have announced no clear plans for the first hundred days, and when someone does not tell you the plan, you can assume that there is no plan. Plus, they seem to be going back to their old habits of selecting congressional leadership not based on core attributes like merit, loyalty and lib owning. Trump 2.0 is focused and eager to keep his promises and make America great again. The GOP Congress seems far too focused on business as usual.
h/t DS
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal last Wednesday to outline what they styled “The DOGE Plan to Reform Government.” DOGE is, of course, an acronym for the prospective Department of Government Efficiency whose mission will be to reduce the size of the administrative state and strip its unelected bureaucrats of the enormous power they unlawfully wield over the American people. Musk and Ramaswamy explain that President-elect Trump has asked them to take on this task and why: “The entrenched and ever-growing bureaucracy represents an existential threat to our republic, and politicians have abetted it for too long.”
Incoming border czar Tom Homan had a message Saturday for Democrat mayors and governors who are itching for a fight with him on deportations: “Game on.”
Via HotAir
Withdrawal of approval by President-elect Donald Trump from his choice for Secretary of the Department of Defence (DoD), Pete Hegseth, is apparently becoming a real possibility, because of Hegseth’s failure, now a serious distraction, to disclose a 2017 claim of sexual misconduct to Trump’s transition team.
On the one hand, Hegseth’s removal from contention would be no great loss, since he is widely regarded as lacking the necessary experience and political capital to oversee the mammoth Pentagon’s three million employees and $800 billion budget.
A parting attempt to obstruct the incoming president’s promises of a crackdown on illegal immigration.
WASHINGTON — If you think of Joe Biden as a nice old man who was kicked to the curb, consider his administration’s jaw-dropping efforts to sabotage Donald Trump. The president-elect plans to actually enforce federal immigration law starting Jan. 20, when Trump takes the oath of office. As the New York Post reported Thursday, Team Biden “is quietly rushing to implement new policies that will loosen restrictions on migrants who entered the U.S. illegally — a parting attempt to thwart President-elect Donald Trump’s immigration crackdowns and mass deportations,” according to sources.
Can Donald Trump bring peace to Ukraine in a day, as he asserted during the presidential campaign, even before he enters the White House?
The short answer is: no.
To be sure, his election has helped change the tone of the protagonists. Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky says he is ready to work for peace in 2025.
We are witnessing a historic counterrevolution after President Trump’s victory, far different from his first election in 2016.
The orthodox and the supposed scripted future are now suspect. And they are likely to be dethroned — from the trivial to the existential.
Critics claim Trump has no mandate to stage such a counterrevolution. They argue that he did not win 51 percent of the popular vote or achieve a Reaganesque landslide in the Electoral College.
A recent Echelon Insights poll shows that voters not only view Republicans more favorably than Democrats but also largely support Donald Trump’s transition. Despite efforts by Democrats and the media to generate controversy, Trump is enjoying significant goodwill, with 53% of registered voters approving of his transition and 40% disapproving. Interestingly, while Trump remains personally unpopular, voters appear to want him to succeed.
President-elect Donald Trump went from a former commander-in-chief with a polarizing exit to a cultural icon whose re-election over a mugshot and two assassination attempts defined one of the greatest American comebacks of all time. Enter the “Trump dance” as a nationwide celebration of the ex-president’s triumph over four years of dystopian rule by a condescending administration.
WATCH: Good Saturday everyone !
The Trump dance is the new “Macarena” !
Hey Joy Reid, Rob Reiner, Mark Cuban and the rest of you bozos at MSNBC, YOU SHOULD TRY IT ! 🙂 pic.twitter.com/9T9FKQNrrl
— CoolBlue (@BackThebluecool) November 23, 2024
Again and again, when Donald Trump has faced scandal and scrutiny, Pam Bondi was there to defend him.
Bondi said the Justice Department’s special counsel investigation into whether Trump associates coordinated with Russian interference in the 2016 election needed to be dissolved. She declared that the 45th president’s first impeachment in 2019 was a “sham.” And when Trump was indicted four times after leaving office, Bondi was blunt about who deserved legal scrutiny — and it wasn’t the former president.
Just two weeks after the U.S. election, the false hysteria that had been widely generated about immediate abandonment of Ukraine by the incoming Trump administration because of the returning president’s supposed infatuation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, has effectively evaporated. It was Trump who ignored the pacifistic havering of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and supplied pre-Zelenskyy Ukraine with Javelin anti-tank missiles to strengthen Ukraine’s resistance against Russian incursions. Trump has never for an instant failed to recognize that Russia must not be allowed to reoccupy Ukraine and his criticism of the Biden administration has not been its resistance to the Russian aggression but the failure to have any strategy to end the war satisfactorily and quickly. Trump’s views should not be confused with those of his quasi-followers who are now so suspicious of the Pentagon’s predilection for becoming involved in distant wars that they rail against the extent of American military assistance to Ukraine, even though at least 90 per cent of the cost of assistance is acquisitions from American defence suppliers.
Barely a week after he was announced as president-elect, Donald Trump’s choice for U.S. attorney general, MAGA firebrand Matt Gaetz has withdrawn himself from contention for the post. Officially, Gaetz said on X (formerly Twitter) that his “confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition.” Unofficially, the New York Times reported that the votes in the Senate simply were not there: Republicans are set to hold a 53–47 Senate majority come January, but there were at least four implacable “no” votes from Republicans. Interestingly, one of the widely reported “no” votes, apparently, was outgoing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, an inveterate MAGA foe.
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (AP) — A U.S. senator and supporter of Donald Trump said Friday the president-elect would laugh at Canada’s current military spending plans and said the country must do more.
Idaho Republican Sen. Jim Risch, ranking member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, made the remarks at the start of the annual Halifax International Security Forum which attracts defense and security officials from Western democracies.
According to NATO figures, Canada was estimated to be spending 1.33% of GDP on its military budget in 2023, below the 2% target that NATO countries have set for themselves.
More …
Republican Rep. Mike Turner, chairman of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, claims Justin Trudeau – not Donald Trump – is the "greatest threat to NATO."
You can watch Rep. Turner's exclusive Canadian broadcast interview on CTV's Question Period, Sunday at 11:00 a.m. ET. pic.twitter.com/TEqgpvseTI
— CTV Question Period (@ctvqp) November 23, 2024
h/t Mauser
Despite claiming years ago to have “the best words,” President-elect Donald Trump is something less than a flawless orator. Consider his remarks during an on-stage appearance this past summer at the annual convention of the National Association of Black Journalists: “I will tell you that coming from the border are millions and millions of people that happen to be taking black jobs.”
Democrats and the media panned then-nominee Trump for appearing to suggest that some jobs are inherently “black.” But they failed to address his intended point: illegal immigrants are competing for, and in some cases taking, jobs held by African Americans.
