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Donald Trump on Technology2016 Republican incumbent President; 2000 Reform Primary Challenger for President |
Hard to believe our Senate Republicans are dealing with the Radical Left Democrats in making a so-called bipartisan bill on 'infrastructure,' with our negotiators headed up by SUPER RINO [Republican in name only] Mitt Romney. This will be a victory for the Biden Administration and Democrats, and will be heavily used in the 2022 election. It is a loser for the USA, a terrible deal, and makes the Republicans look weak, foolish, and dumb. It shouldn't be done. It sets an easy glidepath for Dems to then get beyond what anyone thought was possible in future legislation. It will be a continued destruction of our Country. Our Borders are horrible, crime is at an all time high, taxes and inflation are going way up, the economy is going way down, and now this. Don't do it Republicans--Patriots will never forget! If this deal happens, lots of primaries will be coming your way!
We want our sons and daughters to know the truth: America is the greatest and most exceptional nation in the history of the world! We are a nation of fierce, proud, and independent American Patriots. We are a nation of pilgrims, pioneers, adventurers, explorers and trailblazers who refused to be tied down, held back, or reined in. Americans have steel in their spines, grit in their souls, and fire in their hearts. There is no one like us on earth.
As part of his State of the Union address last week, Trump called for "investments in the cutting edge industries of the future," and as administration official underscored the importance of AI in "driving" these future industries for the US. When asked about China's advancements in AI and any concerns that the US may have about China stealing US innovations, the official said: "The US is the world leader in artificial intelligence. It is not surprising to us that the Chinese are interested." But as for intellectual property protections, "that is something that this specific executive order does not cover."
"For months, we have urged China to change these unfair practices, and give fair and reciprocal treatment to American companies," Trump said in a statement. "We have been very clear about the type of changes that need to be made, and we have given China every opportunity to treat us more fairly. But, so far, China has been unwilling to change its practices."
But I also told him that if we could make a case--if we could nail a leaker of classified information to the wall--it would serve as an important deterrence signal. Although I had made no reference about going after members of the media, the president said something about how we once put reporters in jail and made them talk.
This was a reference to the Scooter Libby investigation, when N.Y. Times reporter Judith Miller spent nearly three months in jail in 2005 in contempt of court for refusing to comply with a court order for information about her conversations with Libby. He then urged me to talk to attorney general Sessions about ways to be more aggressive.
TRUMP: Space exploration has given so much to America, including tremendous pride in our scientific and engineering prowess. A strong space program will encourage our children to seek STEM educational outcomes and will bring millions of jobs and trillions of dollars in investment to this country. The cascading effects of a vibrant space program are legion and can have a positive, constructive impact on the pride and direction of this country. Observation from space and exploring beyond our own space neighborhood should be priorities. We should also seek global partners, because space is not the sole property of America. All humankind benefits from reaching into the stars.
JILL STEIN: We recognize the inspiration provided by space exploration and so we support the peaceful exploration of space; space-based systems to monitor environmental conditions; and measures to ensure that space technology benefits all the people of Earth.
TRUMP: Innovation has always been one of the great by-products of free market systems. The federal government should encourage innovation in the areas of space exploration and investment in research and development across the broad landscape of academia.
Q: Many scientific advances require long-term investment to fund research over a period of longer than the two year terms that govern political cycles. How will you balance long-term funding?
TRUMP: The premise of this question is exactly correct--scientific advances do require long term investment. This is why we must have programs such as a viable space program and institutional research that serve as incubators to innovation and the advancement of science and engineering in a number of fields. We should also bring together stakeholders and examine what the priorities ought to be for the nation.
In 2007, Trump received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and he is among the highest paid public speakers in the world. The Apprentice has raised over $15 million for charity.
One of the worst fears we can have is the fear to attempt something. I wasn't sure I'd be a success on the radio, but I went for it and my program on Clear Channel was a big hit. But I had to take the chance first to find out.
'It should be VERY BIG & BOLD, Two Trillion Dollars, and be focused solely on jobs and rebuilding the once great infrastructure of our Country! Phase 4.'
Congressional Summary: S.2302 addresses several provisions related to highway transportation infrastructure, including provisions to accelerate project completions, improve resiliency to disasters, and reduce highway emissions, [including]:
The project is widely considered to be among the most pressing and most expensive infrastructure needs in the country, and state and local leaders have long sought federal funding to jump-start work on it. But the Trump administration threw the project into doubt late last year by casting aside an agreement reached during the Obama administration that would have the federal government pick up half the project's cost.
And now, Trump has taken a personal interest in making sure no federal dollars flow to a project that is considered critical to his hometown's long-term economic prosperity. The motivations behind Trump's opposition are not entirely clear.
Together, we can reclaim our building heritage. We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways across our land. And we will do it with American heart, American hands, and American grit.
I am asking both parties to come together to give us the safe, fast, reliable, and modern infrastructure our economy needs and our people deserve.
Any bill must also streamline the permitting and approval process--getting it down to no more than two years, and perhaps even one.
It's been a little over a month since my inauguration, and I want to take this moment to update the Nation on the progress I've made in keeping those promises. America must put its own citizens first .
Crumbling infrastructure will be replaced with new roads, bridges, tunnels, airports and railways gleaming across our beautiful land. Our terrible drug epidemic will slow down and ultimately, stop. And our neglected inner cities will see a rebirth of hope, safety, and opportunity. Above all else, we will keep our promises to the American people.
America has spent approximately $6 trillion in the Middle East, all this while our infrastructure at home is crumbling. With this $6 trillion we could have rebuilt our country--twice. And maybe even three times if we had people who had the ability to negotiate.
The order directs the Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), within 30 days of a request, to determine a project's environmental impact and decide whether it is "high priority." Project review deadlines are to be put in place by the CEQ's chairman.
The order is widely believed to have been issued in response to the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, [an incomplete project for shale oil which many protest on environmental grounds].
We will build new roads, and highways, and bridges, and airports, and tunnels, and railways all across our wonderful nation. We will get our people off of welfare and back to work--rebuilding our country with American hands and American labor.
TRUMP: This may be the most important issue we face as a nation for the next generation. Therefore, we must make the investment in our fresh water infrastructure to ensure access to affordable fresh water solutions for everyone. We must explore all options to include making desalinization more affordable and working to build the distribution infrastructure to bring this scarce resource to where it is needed for our citizens and those who produce the food of the world. This must be a top priority for my administration.
CLINTON: Chronic underinvestment in our nation's drinking and wastewater systems poses health risks to humans and wildlife, disrupts ecosystems, and disproportionately impacts communities of color.
JILL STEIN: Clean water is a human right.
Our infrastructure is terrible, and it's only getting worse and more expensive to fix. It's already costing the American people and estimated $200 billion a year in reduced productivity. That number is increasing annually. Instead of being at the office or in the factory getting work done, Americans waste countless hours every day sitting in traffic jams or waiting for stalled trains. We depend on our truckers to deliver the goods we need, and they end up wasting an unbelievable amount of time because our highway system is falling apart.
I wonder, why can't we get these problems fixed? The answer is that the people we put in charge don't know how to fix them.
On Aug. 25, Trump said, "Our bridges, 59% of our bridges are in trouble. Think--whoever heard of that? I mean, in trouble. Serious trouble." Whoever heard of that? Not the FHWA. The agency annually produces a report on the state of the nation's bridges. The FHWA's most recent report found 61,365 bridges were "structurally deficient" and 84,525 were "functionally obsolete" in 2014. That's a total of 24%
Functionally obsolete doesn't mean the bridge is unsafe: it may be the source of traffic jams or may not have a high enough clearance to allow an oversized vehicle.
We don't mean to minimize the number of bridges in need of attention, but the number is simply not as high as Trump says. Where did he get the figure 59%? We don't know. His campaign did not respond to our questions.
I look at the roads being built all over the country, and I say I can build those things for one-third. What they do is unbelievable, how bad.
We have to rebuild our infrastructure, our bridges, our roadways, our airports. You come into La Guardia Airport, it's like we're in a third world country. You look at the patches and the 40-year-old floor. They throw down asphalt. And I come in from China and I come in from Qatar and I come in from different places, and they have the most incredible airports in the world. You come to back to this country and you have LAX, disaster. You have all of these disastrous airports. We have to rebuild our infrastructure.
"This is my megaphone, " Trump said again. "Let's not call it Twitter, let's call it social media." Though the White House had Facebook and Instagram accounts, Trump did not use them. He stuck to Twitter. "This is who I am. This is how I communicate. It's how I got elected. It's the reason I'm successful.
The tweets were not included to his presidency. They were central. He ordered printouts to his recent tweets that had received a high number of likes, 200,000 or more. He studied them to find out the common themes in the most successful.
Representative Mike Quigley, Democrat of Illinois, questioned Mueller on Mr. Trump's response to WikiLeaks. Mr. Mueller did not mince words: "It's problematic -- is an understatement, in terms of what it displays in terms of giving some hope or some boost to what is and should be illegal activity," Mr. Mueller responded.
The bill uses a little-known tool called the Congressional Review Act (CRA) that allows the president to overturn recently passed agency regulations. Before Trump took office, the CRA had only been successfully passed once, under Pres. Bush in 2001. Trump has signed 10 bills overturning Obama-era regulations, including the internet privacy rule.
The bill caused an uproar when it passed the House and Senate last month, with critics accusing Republicans of selling their constituents' privacy.
TRUMP: The United States government should not spy on its own citizens. That will not happen in a Trump administration. As for protecting the Internet, any attack on the Internet should be considered a provocative act that requires the utmost in protection and, at a minimum, a proportional response that identifies and then eliminates threats to our Internet infrastructure.
CLINTON: I will make it clear that the United States will treat cyberattacks just like any other attack. We will be ready with serious political, economic and military responses and we will invest in protecting our governmental networks and national infrastructure.
JILL STEIN: Negotiate international treaty banning cyberwarfare; create a new UN agency tasked with identifying the sources of cyber attacks.
A: We should be better than anybody else, and perhaps we're not. I don't think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC. She's saying "Russia, Russia, Russia," but I don't. Maybe it was. I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, OK? We came up with the Internet, and Clinton and myself would agree very much, when you look at what ISIS is doing with the Internet, they're beating us at our own game. So we have to get very, very tough on cyber and cyber warfare. It is a huge problem. The security aspect of cyber is very, very tough. And maybe it's hardly doable. But I will say, we are not doing the job we should be doing. But that's true throughout our whole governmental society. We have so many things that we have to do better and certainly cyber is one of them.
TRUMP: ISIS is recruiting through the Internet. ISIS is using the Internet better than we are using the Internet, and it was our idea. I want to get our brilliant people from Silicon Valley and other places and figure out a way that ISIS cannot do what they're doing. You talk freedom of speech. I don't want them using our Internet to take our young, impressionable youth. We should be using our most brilliant minds to figure a way that ISIS cannot use the Internet. And then we should be able to penetrate the Internet and find out exactly where ISIS is and everything about ISIS. And we can do that if we use our good people.
Q: So, are you open to closing parts of the Internet?
TRUMP: I would certainly be open to closing areas where we are at war with somebody. I don't want to let people that want to kill us \use our Internet.
Given Trump's current war with Fox News, he may be reconsidering his defense of conservative media. But in any case, the defense is ill-placed: The Fairness Doctrine--an FCC policy from the late '40s that said broadcasters must present issues in an honest, equitable, and balanced way--was eliminated in 1987. It has nothing to do with Net neutrality.
As one pundit noted, "How keeping the Internet accessible to everyone is somehow a power grab, or how it will somehow oppress conservatives, is beyond us. The Fairness Doctrine required equal time for opposing views; Net neutrality allows any idiot to use the Internet however he so chooses, without having to pay extra fees in order for people to actually see it.."
What China is doing on the cyber warfare front is equally alarming. Cyber spying can isolate network weaknesses and allow the Chinese to steal valuable intelligence.
China presents three big threats to the United States in its outrageous currency manipulation, its systematic attempt to destroy our manufacturing base, and its industrial espionage and cyber warfare against America. The Chinese have been running roughshod over us for years. Obama claims we can't do what's in our interests because it might spark a "trade war"--as if we're not in one now.
Summary by Vox.com: The US House of Representatives just passed a bill to bring Obama-era net neutrality rules back to the internet. This time, they want to make these regulations law so the Federal Communications Commission can’t overturn them easily. President Trump has said he will veto the bill should it make it to his desk. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called the bill "dead on arrival in the Senate".
Statement in support by Rep. Jim Costa (D-CA-16): "The internet has a profound impact on America's economy and the social fabric of our nation. It is an important tool to connect individuals to each other and businesses with consumers, said Costa. "Ensuring a free and open internet, with equal access to all, is essential if we are to preserve the American dream."
Statement in opposition by Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC-8): "If this legislation became law, the Internet would be slower, more expensive, less free and controlled by Washington," said Rep. Hudson. "This would hurt our rural communities the most. I'll continue to work to keep the Internet free from government intervention and open."
Statement in opposition by Rep. Don Bacon (R-NC-8): "Previous regulations led to additional expenses for 80% of providers in rural areas leading to delayed or reduced network expansion and services," said Rep. Bacon. "This bill would also lay the groundwork for the government for eventually taxing the internet." The internet is now operating under the same regulations that governed, and facilitated its expansive growth, from the mid 1990's until 2015. Some Democrats predicted that the return of those regulations would lead to limited access of the internet. None of those scenarios came true.
Legislative outcome: Bill passed House 232-190-10 on April 10, 2019, rollcall #167. [The 116th Congress terminated with no Senate action on this bill].