Harley-Davidson wants to live to ride another day. Cue the rage.
When it comes to misguided revenge, Sons of Anarchy has nothing on Donald Trump. The President’s own man-of-mayhem trade policies have forced Harley-Davidson to move some of its motorcycle production overseas. But Mr. Trump responded to this week’s announcement by menacing the company on Twitter Tuesday morning.
.. “A Harley-Davidson should never be built in another country—never!” Mr. Trump raged. “Their employees and customers are already very angry at them. If they move, watch, it will be the beginning of the end – they surrendered, they quit! The Aura will be gone and they will be taxed like never before!” In another tweet, the President added, “Harley must know they won’t be able to sell back into U.S. without paying a big tax!”
.. So the company was left with two choices: Avoid the tariff by moving operations abroad, or pay the new EU tax, which will cost the company $90 million to $100 million each year. Keep in mind that Harley is already paying $15 million to $20 million more for manufacturing this year because of Mr. Trump’s tariffs on metal... Harley is dealing with union backlash for opening a production plant in Thailand while closing one in Kansas City. Harley made that hard call after Mr. Trump withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership last year, though that agreement would have reduced foreign tariffs on American-made motorcycles.Mr. Trump’s TPP decision made it harder for Harley to compete in the Asian market while still using U.S.-based steelworkers and machinists. Cause, meet effect... We remember how Barack Obama railed against Anthem for raising insurance premiums when Democrats were distorting the health-care market. One might expect that Mr. Trump, supposedly savvier about business realities, would understand how corporations have to make tough choices to survive bad policies. Mr. Trump should rage against the man in the mirror who is the reason for Harley’s choices.
People Are Angry President Trump Used This Word to Describe Undocumented Immigrants
“They don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our country, like MS-13,” he wrote, referencing a violent criminal gang based in Central America.
Critics of Trump’s language argued that it was dehumanizing to use a term traditionally used for pests.
.. “Infest.” Trump’s dehumanizing language continues—as it always does—by lumping nonviolent illegal immigrants in with violent gangs... Using words like”pour into” and “infest’ are dehumanizing tactics repeatedly used in history to smear immigrants & refugees, all in attempts to rob them of their humanity. Language matters... Trump’s statement that immigrants will “infest our Country” probably sounds better in the original German... Just a complete fabrication.And notice that he continues to use words for animals and rodents like “infest” to describe people.
This word was often used in Rwanda during genocide, comparing people to roaches.
.. “Infest” is language used in Nazi propaganda to describe the “infestation” of Jews in Germany, who were compared to rats. Here’s the President of the United States saying illegal immigrants “infest” our country. Keep telling me those Nazi comparisons are unfair... “Infest”Yeah, he was taken out of context when he called immigrants “animals.” Excellent take there.
President Trump seems to be saying more and more things that aren’t true
Since Saturday, Trump has tweeted false or misleading information at least seven times on the topic of immigration and at least six times on a Justice Department inspector general report into the FBI’s handling of its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server. That’s more than a dozen obfuscations on just two central topics — a figure that does not include falsehoods on other issues, whether in tweets or public remarks.
.. in June, Trump has been tweeting at the fastest rate of his presidency so far, an average of 11.3 messages per day.
.. The president often seeks to paint a self-serving and self-affirming alternate reality for himself and his supporters. Disparaging the “fake news” media, Trump offers his own filter through which to view the world — offering a competing reality on issues including relationships forged (or broken) at the Group of Seven summit in Canada, the success of the Singapore summit with the North Koreans, and his administration’s “zero tolerance” policy on illegal immigration.
.. “As far as I can tell, the best way to understand anything he says is what will best serve his interests in the moment. It’s irrespective to any version of the truth.”
.. Trump had made 3,251 false or misleading claims in 497 days — an average of 6.5 such claims per day of his presidency.
.. Trump’s use of repetition is a particularly effective technique for convincing his supporters of the veracity of his false claims, in part because most people have a “truth bias,” or an initial inclination to accept what others say as true.
.. “When liars repeat the same lie over and over again, they can get even more of an advantage, at least among those who want to believe them or are not all that motivated either way,”
.. “So when people hear the same lies over and over again — especially when they want to believe those lies — a kind of new reality can be created. What they’ve heard starts to seem like it’s just obvious, and not something that needs to be questioned.”
.. While Congress could pass a legislative fix, Republicans control both the House and the Senate — making it disingenuous at best to finger the opposing party, as the president has repeatedly done.
.. Trump again falsely painted the humanitarian crisis as a binary choice. “We can either release all illegal immigrant families and minors who show up at the border from Central America, or we can arrest the adults for the federal crime of illegal entry,” he said. “Those are the only two options.”
.. twice in the past four days has singled out Germany as facing an increase in crime. “Crime in Germany is up 10% plus (officials do not want to report these crimes) since migrants were accepted,” Trump wrote. “Others countries are even worse. Be smart America!”
.. In fact, the opposite is true. Reported crime in Germany was actually down by 10 percent last year and, according to German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, the country’s reported crime rate last year was actually at its lowest point in three decades.
.. The president has also falsely claimed that the inspector general report “exonerated” him from Mueller’s probe, when the report did not delve into the Russia investigation.
.. On a conference call Tuesday morning, for instance, a senior Health and Human Services official said the new policy was focused on deterrence and was working — contradicting the public comments of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who has publicly said that family separation is not a policy, is not new and is not about deterrence.
.. the past week may mark an “inflection point” in how both the media and the public treat Trump’s mistruths.
.. “The lies have been so bald and discernibly false, I think people have felt license to challenge him and use the word ‘lie’ more freely than they have in the past,”
Right About Roseanne
what Barr tweeted wasn’t an idea. It was a slur.
.. This is not a “double standards” issue.
.. Donald Trump took to Twitteron Wednesday to denounce Disney’s chairman, Robert Iger, for not apologizing to him for the “HORRIBLE statements made and said about me on ABC.” But he’s the ultimate public figure, whereas Jarrett is a private citizen subjected to unprovoked racial attack by an ABC employee. That the president fails or refuses to appreciate the distinction is the thousandth reminder of his unfitness for office.
.. The relevant question here is: What’s the “totality” of Barr’s work, at least when it comes to political and racial questions?
.. John Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary magazine, summed it up perfectly when he described Barr as “a boor,” a “notorious believer and propagator of conspiracy theories related to 9/11,” and, in all, “not merely a loose cannon but a MIRVed ICBM ready to go off in all directions at any time.”
.. It’s true the players don’t have the legal right. But they have the moral one, especially when their gesture is dignified, considered and silent (even if I also think it’s mistaken); and when the N.F.L. has aggressively blurred the lines between its commercial interests and the totems of American patriotism. To love freedom is to exercise it. That’s not a function of standing for a song.
.. Dungey and Iger acted despite “Roseanne” being a ratings hit. Something mattered more than a bottom line.
The show was supposed to help explain, and humanize, Trump’s base to a frequently unsympathetic and uncomprehending public. Through her tweet, Barr managed to do so all too well. Perhaps the reason Trump voters are so frequently the subject of caricature is that they so frequently conform to type.