Sore-Winner Trump Sues Over Poll

By Michael Woyton

At least in one thing, the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist is a man of his word.

At Donald Trump’s little “news” conference Monday, he said he was planning to sue pollster Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register for published a poll that showed him possibly losing the state of Iowa to Vice President Kamala Harris.

Indeed, the retributionist-elect filed a lawsuit Monday in Iowa claiming Selzer and the Gannett-owned newspaper interfered in the election, NBC News reported.

Subscribe for free to On Second Thought:

Trump’s legal braintrust is “making the claim under the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act, which prohibits deceptive advertising,” NBC News said.

“The suit states that ‘Million of Americans, including Plaintiff, residents of Iowa, and Iowans who contributed to President Trump’s Campaign and its affiliated entities (the ‘Trump 2024 Campaign’), were deceived by the doctored Harris Poll’ and that the ‘polling “miss” was not an astonishing coincidence — it was intentional’,” NBC News reported.

News flash: Trump won Iowa and the presidential race. And reporting on poll results is not advertising.

The sore-winner-elect is making good on his promise to bring retribution. That is also reflected in his choice of members of his Cabinet and other administration officials. Think Kash Patel and what he wants the FBI to do.

News of the Selzer/Des Moines Register lawsuit also comes on the heels of ABC News and George Stephanopolous deciding to settle a lawsuit Trump brought because he claimed he was defamed by a statement of fact.

I have no reason to believe that Gannett, with its deep pockets, will also bend the knee to the incoming president — likely just before any deposition takes place.

The newspaper powerhouse will follow ABC News, Jeff Bezos and his Washington Post, Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, Joe and Mika of “Morning Joe” and Patrick Soon-Shiong and his Los Angeles Times by telling Trump, “Please, sir, may I have another.”

One thing people need to remember is that everything Trump does related to getting even with his perceived enemies means he is not doing anything that will benefit the American public.

—————————

When Trump isn’t filing lawsuits, he is instilling his obnoxiousness in the people who serve him.

The man-child elect believes he is being oh so clever when, for the second time, he tweets or truths about Canada, calling the country “the Great State of Canada” and calling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “the Governor.”

And who can forget the hilarity that ensued when during the 2016 campaign and afterward Trump called Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas”?

Now his transition spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt (she’ll be the White House press secretary in January) is following in Trump’s elevated-heel shoes by using “Pocahontas” as a pejorative toward the sitting senator.

Warren called for Trump to get co-president Elon Musk to operate under an ethics policy to avoid conflicts of interest, actual and apparent, according to the Washington Post.

NEW: Elizabeth Warren wrote Trump a letter yesterday asking for Elon Musk to have clear conflict-of-interest guardrails. Trump’s team called her “Pocahontas” in reply. The question of whether Musk abides by transition ethics rules remains unanswered. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202…

— Michael Scherer (@michaelscherer.bsky.social) 2024-12-17T12:43:44.231Z

In response, Leavitt said in a statement that Trump has selected “the most impressive and qualified team of innovators, entrepreneurs and geniuses to advise and staff our government.” (You can stop laughing now.)

She continued, “Pocahontas can play political games and send toothless letters, but the Trump-Vance transition will continue to be held to the highest ethical and legal standards possible — a standard unfamiliar to a career politician whose societal impact is 1/1024th of Elon Musk’s.”

Way to be an adult in the room, Leavitt. Did the man-child-elect dictate that to you?

Lead art: Screen grab from Google Maps.

Another Media Org Joins Bent Knee Club

By Michael Woyton

Some days you just know where to start.

And then you find out the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist gave a “news” conference.

Yes, president-elect Donald Trump spoke Monday in front of reporters, whom he called corrupt, and said he would consider a pardon for New York City Mayor Eric Adams, even though he said he wasn’t familiar with the charges Adams is facing, the Associated Press reported.

Subscribe for free to On Second Thought:

The sultan of Mar-a-Lago also boasted/lied that “he has done more in his short transition period than his predecessor did in all four years,” the AP reported.

Trump considers his transition period as more successful than Biden because of a $100 billion dollar investment in the United States by SoftBank GroupCEO Masasyoshi Son. Remember, he promised anyone who said they were going to make a billion-dollar investment all the expedited approvals and permits they needed, environmental concerns be damned.

To put the promised $100 billion from Son in perspective, the Biden administration’s bipartisan intrastructure deal, passed Nov. 6, 2021, comes to $1.2 trillion. 

So yeah, Trump good, Biden not good.

Trump also mentioned the mysterious drones during the hourlong presser, saying that the government knows where they are coming from and just doesn’t want to say.

He even said, since they were spotted over his Bedminster golf course, he maybe won’t be spending the weekend up there, the New York Times reported.

That’s some good news.

The twice-impeached leader of the free world also said during the “news” conference that he was planning to sue the Des Moines Register for a pre-election poll that turned out to be wrong. (Imagine a poll not being accurate.) He also said he was considering legal action against “60 Minutes” for a perceived misquote.

“We have to straighten out the press,” the Times quoted him as saying. “The press is very corrupt. Almost as corrupt as our elections.” (Was the election he just won “corrupt”?)

Trump is going to continue threatening and suing news organizations he doesn’t think has treated him properly, and what “properly” means is anybody’s guess.

Obviously, the man who has yet to be sentenced for 34 felony counts of falsified business records has smelled blood in the water that lets him know what he can get away with when it come to news organizations and social media.

Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame and who owns the Washington Post, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook/Meta, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and Patrick Soon-Shiong of the Los Angeles Times have all bent the knee or kissed the ring of the incoming president.

Over the weekend, a settlement between Trump and ABC News was announced with ABC paying $15 million to a presidential museum and foundation, plus $1 million in legal costs, for the former and future president.

Why the payout?

Trump said George Stephanopoulos defamed him when he said 10 times during a March interview with Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina that a jury found that Trump raped writer E. Jean Carroll, CNN reported.

ABC News to issue apology to polio after saying it's bad.

— Daily Trix (@dailytrix.bsky.social) 2024-12-16T01:29:09.693Z

Trump has denied and continues to deny that he raped Carroll in the mid-1990s and that he defamed her in denying her claim.

A jury in 2023 found that Trump sexually abused Carroll, though it didn’t find that she proved the rape. In August 2023, a judge was dismissing Trump’s countersuit against Carroll and concluded “that Trump ‘raped’ her in the broader sense of that word, as people generally understand it,” CNN reported.

That means that ABC settled the defamation lawsuit, admitting that the network and Stephanopoulos regret the statements made in March, even though a judge in August 2023 pretty much said, yeah, it was rape though not according to the then-legal definition. (The definition of rape in New York state was changed in January.)

Some media experts are saying that this win for Trump is also fortuitous because the man who lies constantly won’t have to be deposed while under oath.

But, according to Poynter, many see it “as ABC News (and Disney) caving to Trump.” 

Oliver Darcy in his Status Newsletter said it will “embolden Trump and his allies, who have vowed to launch an unprecedented assault on the free press.” 

It is difficult to not believe the worst in Trump. After all, just today he called the press corrupt and said the press has to be “straightened out.”

Maya Angelou gets quoted a lot these days. She said, “When people tell you who they are, believe them.”

Maya Angelou is not wrong.

Lead art: Screen grab from Google Maps

Required Reading: Canadian PM Rebukes Convicted Felon; ‘This Is Not Normal’

By Michael Woyton

Here are a few things I ran across and thought you should know about them too.

A Canadian member of Parliament delivered a blistering rebuke of president-elect Donald Trump from the floor of the House of Commons.

MP Charlie Angus called out Trump as a “convicted predator” and said his country will not be bullied by him, especially over misinformation about Canada’s role in fentanyl trafficking and the possibility of tariffs imposed on Canadian goods.

Watching this video from MeidasTouch is well worth your time:

—————————

Former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama and television commentator Joyce White Vance watched the convicted felon’s performance on “Meet the Press” Sunday and had a few thoughts.

On Substack, Vance said the entire interview was “full of lies and half-truths, with [host Kristen] Welker trying to push back without derailing her ability to cover key points about Trump’s top level plans.”

His priorities included: jailing Liz Cheney; pardoning Jan. 6 defendants and stripping the citizenship of those born in the United States of immigrants here illegally.

Vance also has some thoughts about how to proceed if we believe in democracy and want to save the Republic.

Read her column on Substack here.

—————————

We are definitely back to “This is not normal!”

What the hell are we even doing? Normalizing & green-lighting another psychotic madman. That’s what we’re doing. It’s f’ing insane.

— W Smith Ω 🧢 (@wessmith123.bsky.social) 2024-12-12T12:39:39.044Z

—————————

Historian Kevin Kruse wrote on Substack about the similarities between Trump’s Cabinet nominees and those of another corrupt administration — that of Warren G. Harding.

Harding, too, selected the richest of the rich for roles as Cabinet members and advisors, including the third richest man in the nation at the time, Andrew Mellon, for treasury secretary.

Kruse also dives into the breakneck speed of nominees coming out of Mar-a-Lago and the bumbling way compromising information is being made public.

Read Kruse’s Substack column here.

—————————

And finally, political cartoonist Mike Luckovich makes the point perfectly that we don’t learn from our mistakes:

Lead art by Michael Woyton

Nobel Laureates Come Out Against RFK Jr.

By Michael Woyton

What do 77 Nobel Prize winners have in common with the New York Post?

Both the newspaper and the smarties are against having Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in charge of the nation’s health organizations.

On Nov. 15, the editorial board of the New York Post came out in opposition to RFK Jr.’s nomination by convicted felon, adjudicated rapist and president-elect Donald Trump to head the Department of Health and Human Services.

Subscribe for free to On Second Thought:

The NY Post called Bobbie Jr. “nuts” and said, “it’s hard to see how he’s the guy to lead HHS and its staff of 83,000 to practical solutions” based on his “warped conspiracy theories” that encompass more than just vaccines.

On Monday, The New York Times published an open letter from 77 Nobel laureates asking members of the United States Senate to oppose the confirmation of RFK Jr. as secretary of DHHS.

“In addition to his lack of credentials or relevant experience in medicine, science, public health, or administration, Mr. Kennedy has been an opponent of many health-protecting and life-saving vaccines, such as those that prevent measles and polio; a critic of the well-established positive effects of fluoridation of drinking water; a promoter of conspiracy theories about remarkably successful treatments for AIDS and other diseases; and a belligerent critic of respected agencies (especially the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control, and the National Institutes of Health).”

The Nobel winners in the fields of chemistry, economics, medicine and physics told the Senate that placing RFK Jr. in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services would jeopardize the public’s health and undermine this country’s global leadership in the health sciences in public and commercial sectors.

RFK Jr.’s nomination fits what Trump wants to do to government in general — disrupt it and sow chaos.

Look also at former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who was nominated to be the director of national intelligence. She faces skepticism about her views on the recently fallen Syrian regime and former president and current Russian resident Bashar al-Assad.

Foreign intelligence concerns are wary of Gabbard and might be less inclined to share sensitive information that she could use for political ends.

Reuters said that a European defense official described her “as ‘firmly’ in the Russian camp.” That certainly lines her up with Trump.

And then there’s former Fox weekend host Pete Hegseth, whose mother went to Capitol Hill to tell senators that he’s a good boy.

He’s fighting back on multiple fronts, including accusations of having a severe drinking problem and sexual abuse.

Hegseth, who does not have any experience in running an organization with an $800 billion budget and millions of active duty soldiers and employees, even took to Fox News to deny that he said he doesn’t want women serving in combat roles. It was something that he said a month ago on video.

There’s a new strategy being employed by the MAGA movement to make certain that Trump gets his way with staffing decisions.

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, recently had the nerve to voice concerns about Hegseth’s nomination and, according to Politico, Trump’s allies followed their master’s playbook and decided to lavish criticism and attacks on Ernst and, lo and behold, she is now saying she is supporting him “through this process.”

That doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement, but it is a far cry from what Ernst was saying just a few days ago.

So the question remains, just how afraid are the members of the senate who surely know that the Constitution gives them the role of advice and consent when it comes to presidential cabinet nominations? Let’s be real: These senators know these nominees are flawed deeply, but are they willing to go against Trump.

Here’s to hoping that hard questions will be asked of each and every one of Trump’s picks, if only by the Democratic side of the aisle.

Lead art: Screen grab from CNN

Hey, Big Spender!

By Michael Woyton

You have to wonder when it’s going to hit the fan and the convicted felon realizes that everyone thinks that Elon Musk is REALLY running the show.

Or everyone thinks Elon Musk thinks he’s running the show.

Either way, one hopes the destroyer of Twitter and the buyer of Tesla is making the most of his $277 million investment in the barely successful presidential campaign that will bring former president Donald Trump back into the White House without even a majority of the popular vote — 49.9 percent to 48.4 percent, according to The Associated Press.

Subscribe for free to On Second Thought:

A quarter of a billion dollars is a boatload of money even when compared to a total of $5.5 billion that was doled out by presidential candidates, the political parties and others to influence the 2024 election, according to PBS News.

When the cost of congressional races are taken into account, PBS News said the cost of the 2024 campaign increases to $15.9 billion.

But back to Musk. The $277 million lavished on Trump and other GOP candidates makes Musk the largest single donor in the 2024 election, Business Insider reported.

Other top spenders in 2024 were Timothy Mellon, Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein and Miriam Adelson, who all spent more than $100 million to get Trump and the GOP elected.

Is this what democracy needs? People so rich they can simply open up their wallets and throw cash toward the candidate who will best serve their wallets?

One super PAC of which Musk apparently was the only source of funds was the RBG PAC — as in Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Musk made a single contribution of $20.5 million, according to federal campaign finance reports, to the PAC which funded ads that implied Trump’s stand on abortion was similar to the late Supreme Court justice, the AP reported.

The PAC’s ads claimed Trump would defend women’s reproductive rights while using Ginsburg’s name and likeness without permission from her family, Salon reported.

In a statement, Ginsburg’s granddaughter Clara Spera said there was no connection between the PAC and the Supreme Court justice and it was an affront to her legacy.

“The use of her name and image to support Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, and specifically to suggest that she would approve of his position on abortion, is nothing short of appalling,” Spera said in her statement.

It was one of many lies that were foisted on the public by Trump and his campaign, aided by Musk’s money. See also: the federal response to Hurricane Helene, the number of illegal immigrants crossing the border under the Biden administration and not touching Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

I hope that Musk is getting his money’s worth, staying at Mar-a-Lago (I thought he was relocating to Texas) and tagging along as Trump visits Paris to see the spiffy new Notre Dame Cathedral.

Being Trump’s minder is in addition to Musk’s “official” duties as co-head of a department which doesn’t exist to suss out inefficiencies in the government to the tune of $2 billion.

Talk about your conflict of interest. 

Should Musk, whose business interests entail billions of dollars in federal contracts, be in charge of cutting government spending? Will he take a hard look at his contracts and say to himself, “You know, I think I’m getting too much federal money”?

Of course not. 

Trump wouldn’t, so why would his billionaire underlings?

I sure hope Musk doesn’t spread himself too thin shadowing the adjudicated rapist here and there.

Time will tell, as it always seems to when Trump is involved, if this is just the beginning of a wonderful co-presidency. Sorry, JD Vance. You probably won’t be the last person in the room.

Maybe Trump will eventually realize that $277 million isn’t enough money to have to put up with the constant companionship of a South African oligarch wannabe.

Trump will turn on Musk. It’s only a matter of time.

Lead art: Screen grab from RSBN

Trump Nominates Former Inmate & More: This and That

By Michael Woyton

Another fine upstanding nominee from the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist was announced Wednesday.

Peter Navarro, fresh out of prison for refusing to comply with a subpoena from Congress about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots, was tagged Wednesday by Donald Trump to be a senior counselor for trade and manufacturing.

That job should be fun considering tariffs will affect trade and manufacturing and not in a good way.

——————————

Olivia Troye, who served under Trump as a White House Homeland Security and counterterrorism official, posted on Bluesky that Kash Patel, who Trump wants to install as head of the FBI, has threatened to sue her over comments made about Patel on MSNBC.

Troye, who stands by her comments, is not a fan of Patel and doesn’t think he is qualified run the premier law enforcement agency of the United States.

Subscribe for free to On Second Thought:

Her comments, according to Patel’s lawyers, included that he would lie about intelligence and has made things up about operations, to the point that the lives of Navy Seals were put at risk.

“This follows his threats against media & political opponents, showing how he might act if confirmed,” Troye posted on social media.

Patel has said publicly that he wants to shut down the FBI’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., on his first day and plans to target media members and federal employees who leak to reporters.

Christopher Wray, who Trump appointed during his first term, still has three years in his term and would have to resign or be fired before Patel could take the job.

——————————

The always informative and knowledgable Elie Mystal live skeeted the hearing Wednesday at the U.S. Supreme Court involving a Tennessee law that bans gender affirming care transgender children.

U.S. vs. Skrmetti is the case, and in his opinion, it will likely be decided 6-3 against the rights of transgender youth.

Basically the court’s right wing majority implied that the Equal Protection Clause does not apply to all Americans.

“This is MAGA’s America now,” Mystal skeeted. “Unless you’re a cishetero white guy, things will be worse for you from here on out. 😦 “

——————————

And a little something from Mike Luckovich via Bluesky:

Lead art by Michael Woyton

Biden Pardoning Hunter Won’t Embolden Trump

By Michael Woyton

Yes, President Joe Biden said he wasn’t going to pardon his son. Yes, Biden pardoned his son.

Those are facts, but the hypocrisy on the right and the left about the pardon are anything but based on facts.

No, the president didn’t pardon his son for anything Ukraine-related.

And no, this will not embolden Donald Trump.

Subscribe to On Second Thought for free:

The convicted felon and adjudicated rapist was gunning for Hunter Biden. Trump and his MAGA followers wildly exploited and exaggerated what the younger Biden was accused of and made up complicity of Biden the Elder — calling all of it “the Biden crime family.”

Trump has done nothing but promise revenge on his political enemies — and at the top of the list were the Bidens.

Again, the former and soon-once-again-to-be president doesn’t need anyone helping him do horrible things to people he sees as threats. Trump is already in that head space.

Had Hunter not been pardoned by his father I think it would have been a blood sport for Trump, who would have taken every opportunity to torture Hunter even more just to make Joe suffer even more.

President Biden, in his statement about the pardon Sunday, said it was clear that his son was being treated differently from others.

“From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted. Without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form. Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given non-criminal resolutions,” President Biden said.

He continued by saying there was a concerted effort to break someone who was sober for five and a half years with unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution.

“In trying to break Hunter,” Biden said, “they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

For his part, Hunter Biden made a statement saying he’s admitted and taken responsibility for his mistakes, “mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport.”

For the record, Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of more than 140 people at the end of his first stint in the White House.

The pardons and commutations included such upstanding citizens as Steve Bannon, Elliott Broidy, Lil Wayne, Albert J. Pirro Jr., Paul Erickson, Paul Manafort and Roger J. Stone Jr. Google them — I don’t want to spend any more time thinking about those people.

And also for the record, Trump has promised to pardon his supporters convicted of participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.

That would be a real slap in the face of Democracy. 

Hunter Biden’s pardon? Not at all.

My take on the Hunter Biden news is that trump has proposed creating a network of concentration camps to deal with the undocumented millions in our country

— Asawin Suebsaeng (@swin24.bsky.social) 2024-12-02T02:08:06.891Z

They all asked for pardons.

— Hoodlum (@nothoodlum.bsky.social) 2024-12-02T05:20:57.214Z

Lead art: Screen grab from Google Maps

He Doesn’t Know the Meaning of Tariffs Either

By Michael Woyton

The difference in messages was striking — and not surprising.

In a Thanksgiving Day post on the social media site formerly known as Twitter, President Joe Biden said he was grateful for the trust put in him to serve the American public in the White House.

“May we use this moment to take time from our busy lives and focus on what matters most: Our families, our friends, our neighbors, and the fact that we’ve been blessed to live in America, the greatest country on Earth,” Biden wrote.

Subscribe to On Second Thought for free:

Contrast that to what the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist president-elect Donald Trump posted on “Truth” Social:

“Happy Thanksgiving to all, including to the Radical Left Lunatics who have worked so hard to destroy our Country, but who have miserably failed, and will always fail, because their ideas and policies are so hopelessly bad that the great people of our Nation just gave a landslide victory to those who want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

You have to wonder why he can’t just accept the fact that he won and get on with it. He is a bitter, petty, vindictive person and doesn’t want to let us forget that. Not that there’s any chance of that.

Trump certainly has convinced himself that he won a landslide victory.

While there is no question that the public voted to return to office someone who incited an insurrection against the government, it was far from a landslide.

On Friday, the Associated Press updated its tally of the votes to 76.9 million for Trump and 74.4 million for Vice President Kamala Harris. 

That breaks down to 50 percent for Trump to 48.4 percent to Harris. The previous tally was 50.5 percent for Trump. Votes are still being counted, so that lead could decreased.

Anyone without a massive, undeserved ego would think it prudent to admit that the race was close and work to the best interests of all the voters — not just the tiny, tiny majority.

An analysis of previous elections showed that Trump’s 2024 Electoral College count of 312 was better than his or Biden’s EC votes in 2016 and 2020, CNN reported. While it outperformed George W. Bush’s EC counts in 2000 and 2004, it was far less that Barack Obama’s 365 EC votes in 2008 and 332 in 2012.

ABC News poses the question: “Who cares if it was a landslide or not?”

The article said soon-to-be-president-again Trump is only the latest in a long-line of presidents-elect to “convert electoral success into political capital to pass their agendas.”

There is one problem with that, ABC News said. “Political scientists who have studied the idea of presidential mandates generally agree that they’re made up.”

Personally, I think that Trump just has to claim the largest, biggest, grandest whatever because that is simply the way he is.

Once again, the mainstream media is trying to shoehorn him into normalcy, instead of seeing him as the danger he continues to be to the United States.

And what the hell is this? (It is a real tweet from vice-president-elect JD Vance)

Lead art: Screen shot of JC Vance tweet from X.com

Tariffs: Once More for the Cheap Seats

By Michael Woyton

Has no one told him? Or has he chosen to lie to the American public, hoping they will believe him?

The convicted felon and adjudicated rapist who is the president-elect announced on his social media site Monday that on his first day back in office he will impose a 25 percent tariff on all products imported from Mexico and Canada.

Again, how will you like not being able to afford an avocado?

Subscribe to On Second Thought for free:

The “rationale” behind Trump’s decree/threat is that he wants Mexico and Canada to close what he calls “open borders” and prevent illegal migrants and fentanyl from coming into the United States. He also will put a 10 percent tariff on goods from China.

The tariffs, he said, will be in effect until the crisis is solved. 

“We hereby demand that they use this power, and until such time that they do, it is time for them to pay a very big price!” Trump wrote.

Well, you know who else will be paying a “very big price”? The American public, as economists have been saying all along.

No one outside of the Trumperverse believes that companies in Mexico, China and Canada will pay the tariffs.

As The New York Times explains, “Mr. Trump has insisted that foreign companies pay the tariffs, but they are actually paid by the company that imports the products, and in many cases passed on to American consumers.”

I think we can all be confident that “many cases” will be “all cases.”

Companies are in the business of making profits, and tariffs cut into those profits. Therefore, companies will raise the cost of their products.

Think about produce coming from Mexico being more expensive. Remember Trump’s first day back in office will be in the dead of winter when we rely on imported food, and he’s also threatened mass deportations, which economists said will decimate the crop-picking work force.

Oil is the top U.S import from Canada and the largest category of goods imported to the U.S. from Mexico are components for cars and finished cars, USA Today reported. You may not be able to afford a car, but that’s OK because the price of gas will go up. Oh, and, again, it’s winter and heating oil is in high demand.

You like electronics? A significant amount of electronic goods comes from China.

Buckle up, America. 

Trump voters complained about things being expensive, but it doesn’t look as if Trump has you in mind with his economic policies.

Here are the top goods that we import from Mexico that we all will be paying more for thanks to MAGA.Bravo, mouth breathers.🙄

— Art Candee 🍿🥤 (@artcandee.bsky.social) 2024-11-26T00:06:47.068Z

Lead art by Michael Woyton

Do Not Go Quietly …

By Michael Woyton

Remember the state schools superintendent in Oklahoma who put out a request for proposals for 55,000 Bibles to be supplied to classrooms?

The RFP was so excellently crafted that the specs would apply only to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A. Bible” that convicted felon and adjudicated rapist president-elect Donald Trump is hawking online for 60 bucks. 

Recently state Superintendent Ryan Walters — of Trump Bible RFP fame — issued a directive for a video he recorded praying for Donald Trump to played in all Oklahoma classrooms, according to reporting from KFOR.

Now the nonprofit Defense of Democracy, which believes that public education is a cornerstone of democracy, has come up with forms that can be used by parents who don’t wish their child to have any interaction with Walters.

Karen Svoboda, the executive director of Defense of Democracy, told KFOR that many parents and administrators in the Oklahoma public schools don’t agree with the mandated prayer video.

“We have seen a flood of interest from the state of Oklahoma, specifically from parents who are panicked, who are devastated that Ryan Walters is requiring this and so relieved that there is at least an option that they can use to protect their kids,” she said.

There are two forms: one targeting Walters’ prayer video and another about using the Bible in classroom instruction.

Both forms have places for parents to put the school principal’s name and address, the student’s name and the parents’ contact information.

The form letter about the prayer video states, “In an attempt to indoctrinate Oklahoma students and promote his own public image, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters has encouraged students to join him in prayer. I am concerned and distressed that this violation of first amendment rights might be visited on my child.”

The letter opts out the student by name “of any interaction with State Superintendent Ryan Walters in any capacity” and withholds permission “for my child to view any video or audio recording of Mr. Walters.”

Likewise, the letter about the Bible opts the child out of “any participation in, any class, lesson, instruction, curriculum assembly, guest speaker, activity, assignment, library material, online material, club, or group, that is teaching, quoting, requiring reading, or otherwise extracting content from The Bible.”

Both letters say that, if they are not honored, any and all legal remedies will be pursued.

The form letters can be found and downloaded here.

Defense of Democracy officials told KFOR that they believe the forms will help schools that are wanting to push back on the directives.

Erica Watkins, state director for the organization, said that superintendents or board directors can use the letters to help them make their case to not show the video.

“It’s this 240 parents that we got this email about that don’t want their kinds to show it,” she said to KFOR.

The Oklahoma attorney general weighed in on the issue, saying Walters had no authority under state law to issue the prayer viewing mandate, CBS News reported.

A spokesperson for the AG said the mandate was unenforceable and contrary to parental rights and local control.

It pays to keep in mind that resistance can start small but the effects are cumulative.

#TrumpTaliban: After forcing schools to bring the Bible into classrooms, Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters insisted he would "absolutely penalize” schools that don't show this video of him praying for President-elect Donald Trump.Which denomination will win the religious war?#TrumpCult

— Bryan Dawson (@bryandawsonusa.bsky.social) 2024-11-21T19:20:33.654Z

Lead art: Screen grab from CNN.