GM to invest $4 billion in U.S. plants amid tariffs for Mexican-produced vehicles
... GM said the investment will add assembly of the gas-powered Chevrolet Blazer and Chevrolet Equinox that are currently produced in Mexico to two other plants in the U.S. and convert a large idled plant in Michigan — formerly expected to build all-electric trucks — to make gas-powered SUVs and trucks in 2027. ...
Watch out, Elon, you may be next.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia returns to face immigrant smuggling charges after wrongful deportation
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was returned to the United States to face criminal charges involving an alleged undocumented immigrant smuggling ring Friday, months after the Maryland resident was wrongfully deported to a prison in his native El Salvador. ...
The indictment alleges that Abrego Garcia and others from 2016 through 2025 “conspired to bring undocumented aliens to the United States from countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador, and elsewhere, ultimately passing through Mexico before crossing into Texas.”
The grand jury that issued the indictment found that he made more than 100 trips smuggling thousands of immigrants. ...
In a post on X on Friday, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele wrote, “As I said in the Oval Office:1. I would never smuggle a terrorist into the United States. 2. I would never release a gang member onto the streets of El Salvador.”
“That said, we work with the Trump administration, and if they request the return of a gang member to face charges, of course we wouldn’t refuse,” Bukele wrote. ...
... Fires across all vessel segments hit the highest level in a decade in 2024, according to insurer Allianz Commercial. ...
More.
Gee, I wonder why.
Don't park one in your garage.
Update Wed Jun 25, 2025:
She sank, 16,000 feet under lol.
The ninth car-carrier in ten years the video says.
The U.S. Court of International Trade on Wednesday blocked steep reciprocal tariffs unilaterally imposed by President Donald Trump on scores of countries in April to correct what he said were persistent trade imbalances. ...
In its ruling, a three-judge panel on the Court of International Trade said that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which Trump invoked to impose the tariffs, does not authorize a president to levy universal duties on imports.And separate, specific tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China related to drug trafficking “fail because they do not deal with the threats set forth in those orders,” the panel wrote.
Implementing tariffs typically requires congressional approval.
But Trump chose to bypass Congress by declaring a national economic emergency under IEEPA, which became law in 1977, and then using the purported emergency as justification for cutting Congress out of the process.
The panel not only ordered a permanent halt to the tariffs at issue in the case, but it also barred any future modifications to them.
The Trump administration was given 10 days to make the necessary changes to carry out the judges’ orders. ...
Wide distribution of ivermectin in Africa to combat river blindness does not appear to have had anything to do whatsoever with low death rates from COVID-19 in places like Angola (62 deaths per million of population), Kenya (120), and Nigeria (16).
It turns out that ivermectin was widely distributed in eight Latin and South American countries from June, August, and December 2020, but all of them had steeply higher death rates from the disease:
Trump doesn't really believe in the tariffs, that they'll do anything one way or another. They are simply the readiest instruments which demonstrate his power, and the daily reminder to all and sundry that he is the king, Mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria reincarnate.
Trump says he’s not even looking at stock market, tariffs will make U.S. ‘very strong’
So long, Trump bump: Tech stocks wipe out last of post-election gains
Trump pauses tariffs on Canada imports for 30 days after doing the same for Mexico
... Trudeau said Canada had made new commitments “to appoint a Fentanyl Czar.” 😉😉
“Canada
is implementing our $1.3 billion border plan — reinforcing the border
with new choppers, technology and personnel, enhanced coordination with
our American partners, and increased resources to stop the flow of
fentanyl,” the prime minister wrote. “Nearly 10,000 frontline personnel
are and will be working on protecting the border.” ...
In 2024, more than 21,100 pounds of fentanyl was seized by U.S.
authorities on the border with Mexico, compared to only about 43 pounds
seized at the Canadian border. ...
Stocks that got hit the most from Trump’s tariffs before the Mexico reprieve
... Shares of companies spanning the auto, industrial, retail and beverage industries with international supply chains were hit particularly hard. ... The president said Monday that he’s pausing the Mexico tariffs for one month after Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum agreed to immediately send 10,000 soldiers to her country’s border to prevent drug trafficking.
The country which can't stop the drug cartels from operating unchecked within its own borders is going to stop drug traffic to the USA because it puts its troops closer to our border?
Phony baloney plastic banana good time rock 'n rolla.
... The sweeping tariff could make more expensive a host of items that
the U.S. imports from its neighbors. Among the common Mexican imports
that will now get pricier to bring into the country: fruits, vegetables,
beer, liquor and electronics. And from Canada: potatoes, grains, lumber
and steel. ...
Trump is enacting the tariffs under the International Emergency
Economic Powers Act, which allows the president to respond to
“extraordinary threat,” which Trump has identified as a fentanyl and
drug crisis that he alleges China, Mexico, and Canada facilitate. ...
More.
Because some Americans use illegal drugs, Trump is punishing all Americans.
Makes sense, right?
I mean George Floyd's blood fentanyl level was fatal and we lit the nation's cities on fire because of it, so yeah, we deserve it.
Absolute lol.
Gavin Newsom faced a recall election, but survived to prove in this new case that he more than deserved it. Just incredible stuff there in California.
28 paragraphs in.
Los Angeles wildfire deaths rise to 24 as more fierce winds are forecast
Along with crews from other states and Mexico, hundreds of inmates from California’s prison system were also helping fight the fires. Nearly 950 prison firefighters were removing timber and brush ahead of the fires to slow their spread, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
The practice is controversial as the inmates are paid little for dangerous and difficult work: $10.24 each day, with more for 24-hour shifts, according to the corrections department.
Mexico is struggling to stamp out a homophobic soccer chant ahead of the World Cup
GUADALAJARA, México (AP) — Guadalajara is the capital of a Mexican state that is home to tequila and Mariachi music. It is also considered the birthplace of a less flattering tradition – a homophobic soccer chant that has cost Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines over the past two decades.
It’s no wild guess that the chant, a one-word slur which literally means male prostitute in Spanish, will be heard from the crowd in Guadalajara’s Akron stadium when Mexico hosts the United States in a friendly on Tuesday. Multiple sanctions from FIFA and campaigns by Mexican soccer officials to educate fans have not been able to stamp it out. ...
XX Should we have the Dubuque job losses here too - bunch them all together, at least on first mention. And can we do them in chronological order - May is before March. Also assuming this first Oct one is 2023. And/or a little fact box on them, which we could also get made up ona little graphic of Iowa showing Factory location and town, population, jobs lost (and jobs left). Might be good to summarise that way. But can do it a fact box first and then decide on map graphic.
I'm sure the company would respond that the 2021 strike was the greed.
There's plenty of greed to go around, though, obviously.
The layoffs come after 10,000 unionized John Deere workers went on strike for five weeks in October 2021.
The strikes were among the most prominent during 'Striketober', where thousands of workers from Nabisco, Kellogg's, McDonald's and others walked out for weeks or even months to protest low pay in the wake soaring company profits.
Striking John Deere employees won a 10 percent raise for hourly earners, increased retirement benefits and the maintaining of the health insurance program that workers don't have to pay premiums for.
In one of its biggest steps yet to keep fossil fuels in the ground, the Biden administration announced Thursday that it will end new coal leasing in the Powder River Basin, which produces nearly half the coal in the United States.
Climate activists have long pushed
the Interior Department to stop auctioning off leases for coal mining
on public lands, and they celebrated the decision. It could prevent
billions of tons of coal from being extracted from more than 13 million
acres across Montana and Wyoming, with major implications for U.S.
climate goals. ...
Last year, the Powder River Basin generated 251.9 million tons of coal, accounting for nearly 44 percent of all coal produced in the United States. Under the bureau’s [Bureau of Land Management] determination, the 14 active coal mines in the Powder River Basin can continue operating on lands they have leased, but they cannot expand onto other public lands in the region. ...
The Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign estimates that 382 coal-fired power plants have closed down or proposed to retire, with 148 remaining. ...
Trump ... pledged to immediately end the Biden administration’s freeze on permits for new liquefied natural gas exports
in a second term . . .. He also pledged to
start auctioning off more leases for oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico
and to lift restrictions on drilling in the Alaskan Arctic.
Majorities now approve of Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans—including 42 percent of Democrats—as well as a border wall. And while violent crime has fallen dramatically since the Trump presidency, voters see more disorder. Drugstores didn’t clear their shelves and lock up merchandise because of widespread looting until Biden was in charge. Videos of open-air drug markets and mayhem on subways don’t just make people scared, they make them angry.
There has been record inflation too, and high prices contribute to a pervasive sense of anxiety in the electorate. But Biden would be far better off politically if high prices were the sole challenge he had with voters. Disorder is a drain on the American psyche. And it’s threatening Biden’s re-election, as it leaves voters receptive to the kind of harsh law-and-order appeal Trump prefers. ... look at the polls ... There is bipartisan fury over protests and immigration. Trump is running to restore order, and voters have given him a lead.
The column is devastating for Biden.
And it wasn't just Anwar al-Awlaki, born in New Mexico.
Obama assassinated three other American citizens, in the same and two other strikes.
Y'all just let that slide because you liked Obama.
. . . the Obama administration never charged al-Awlaki with a crime or even presented concrete evidence of his guilt . . . his targeted killing left American citizens with little more than the proposition that we are supposed to simply trust the president and the executive branch when they use secret intelligence to accuse an American citizen of terrorism and then claim the right to kill that individual without judicial scrutiny.
More.
The New York Times, May 2013, after Obama was safely re-elected:
In his letter to Congressional leaders, Mr. Holder confirmed that the administration had deliberately killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who died in a drone strike in September 2011 in Yemen. Mr. Holder also wrote that United States forces had killed three other Americans who “were not specifically targeted.” . . . Mr. Holder confirmed the government’s role in the deaths of Samir Khan, who was killed in the same strike, and Mr. Awlaki’s son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who died in another strike. The letter disclosed the death of a fourth American named Jude Kenan Mohammad but gave no further details.
CNBC reports today:
There’s fear among global automakers that Chinese rivals like the Warren Buffett-backed BYD could flood their markets, undercutting domestic production and vehicle prices to the detriment of their own auto industries.
“The introduction of cheap Chinese autos — which are so inexpensive because they are backed with the power and funding of the Chinese government — to the American market could end up being an extinction-level event for the U.S. auto sector,” the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a U.S. manufacturing advocacy group, said in a report last month.
BYD sold 1.57 million battery EVs last year, up from just 130,970 all-electric vehicles in 2020. That sales growth was enough to surpass Tesla to become the world’s largest producer of electric vehicles in late 2023.
The rise of BYD and other Chinese automakers led Tesla CEO Elon Musk in January to warn that Chinese automakers will “demolish” global rivals without trade barriers. ...
The company has quickly rolled out new and updated products. It’s also rapidly established manufacturing, as it has its eyes set on factories in Thailand, Brazil, Indonesia, Hungary, Uzbekistan and, potentially, Mexico. ...
Former President Donald Trump – the front-runner among Republicans in the 2024 presidential race – on Saturday suggested instituting a 100% tariff on cars made in Mexico by Chinese companies, should he be elected to a second term.
Laura Rosen Cohen, parent of a special needs child in Toronto, for Newsweek here, who calls this the Abuse That Dare Not Speak Its Name:
This is a pattern in keeping with many dementia patients, as are other symptoms: Rarely does a day go by without video of Biden looking completely confused. He also frequently shouts angrily at reporters and confuses things, like Mexico and Egypt, or the names of dead leaders with current ones.
It's increasingly alarming, and the general consensus in America and around the world is that Biden is both too old for the job and not well.
In most normal families, a frail 81-year-old grandfather insisting on working but showing clear signs of diminished mental capacity and repeated episodes of falling and physical fragility would be encouraged to quit, enjoy his retirement, golf and garden to his heart's content. Quit your day job, Gramps, they would rightly say. And it's not like the Biden family is strapped for cash. Aside from any potential extended family business earnings, Joe Biden himself is reported to be worth approximately $10 million.
President Joe Biden faces a clear and present
physical danger to his person due to his decline. But the public
spectacle of his enfeebled nature also begs a different question: Why is
the First Lady not putting an end to her husband's repeated and
consistent public humiliation? Why aren't his children or grandchildren
doing the right thing for their loved one? ...
If insisting on keeping a frail and doddering senior in the White House (or any job for that matter), exposing him to daily physical risk, demanding he perform tasks beyond his mental and physical capacity or stamina and world ridicule isn't elder abuse, what is? Are there any adults in the Biden family "room" who will finally call a lid not just on the President's repeated public humiliations but on his tenure writ large?
The leader of the free world is now an actual physical representation of the decline of American power and the American Republic. The President's diminished capacity is being willfully and purposely ignored by those closest to him, something that is very well-appreciated by America's enemies. As a result, the world is in chaos.
