Mike's Blog Round-up

“The sweeping tariffs that President-elect Donald Trump imposed in his first term on foreign metals, machinery, clothing and other products were intended to have maximum impact around the world. They sought to shutter foreign factories, rework international supply chains and force companies to make big investments in the United States,” the New York Times reports. “But for many businesses, the most important consequences of the tariffs, enacted in 2018 and 2019, unfolded just a few blocks from the White House.” “In the face of pushback from companies reliant on foreign products, the Trump administration set up a process that allowed them to apply for special exemptions.

A growing number of law enforcement authorities and Democratic leaders across the country are speaking out about their plans to thwart one of President-elect Donald Trump’s top immigration priorities: Mass deportation. Taking lessons from the first four years of the Trump era, many have vowed to stand their ground and refuse to cooperate with federal law enforcement in arresting undocumented immigrants.

In the early 1990s, Justin Pourier was a maintenance man at Red Cloud Indian School, a Catholic school on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. One day, he says he stumbled upon small graves in the school’s basement. For nearly 30 years, Pourier would be haunted by what he saw and told no one except his wife.  “Those are Native children down there…hopefully their spirit was able to travel on to whatever is beyond this world,” Pourier says.

Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-TX) didn’t cite any crime committed when she made her demand for Department of Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to be criminally charged. But she made it on Maria Bartiromo’s Fox Business show, knowing that their (presumably) favorite felon would be watching and probably wouldn’t care about such details as the law. “When you have that much destruction and damage caused to the American people by having these open border polices,” Van Duyne said, “somebody’s head has got to roll.” Donald Trump has already said he wants Kristi Noem to be his director of the Homeland Security Department so Mayorkas’ head has already “rolled,” so to speak. But that’s not enough for Van Duyne.

Trump transition team spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt called Politico and The New York Times 'fake news' on Friday for reports that he didn’t win the popular vote in a landslide. But the numbers don't lie. Trump, who claims to have secured a "powerful mandate' won the popular vote by one of the smallest margins since the 19th century. Still, she went there but was promptly called out. It’s not ‘fake news’, it’s just… math.

Sen. Mike Rounds sat down for an interview with CNBC. The host pointed out that parents of special needs children are having a FAFO moment as they realize that the funding for their children's education services are about to get cut. She went on to ask if the feds were going to ensure the necessary services are provided or if they were going to let the courts do it. Rounds answered showed that he doesn't know how government works and that it was not all about the children: I think it, excuse me, with Special Ed as the example, nobody wants to take away funding for Special Ed but what you do find is that the federal government has always underfunded special education and so the folks at the local level end up picking up a significant amount of the costs involved right now and yet rather than becoming more efficient or direct with their funding and taking care of it we suddenly think that somebody at the federal level is going to make a better decision about how to help that young person than somebody at the local or state level.