President-elect Donald Trump, expanding his efforts to entirely change how the United States operates, on Friday declared he wants to eliminate daylight saving time, and make standard time permanent — a move which just one-third of Americans prefer. Some forget America has tried to eliminate changing the clocks before.

“The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t! Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation,” Trump decreed.

But according to a 2022 CBS News/YouGov poll, nearly half of the nation, 46%, prefer permanent daylight saving time. 33% prefer permanent standard time, and just one in five Americans (21%) like switching clocks back and forth. A separate YouGov poll that same year found a majority of Americans, 59%, want permanent daylight saving time.

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“Extending daylight saving time to the whole year is favored over standard time by nearly all demographic and political groups. It’s rare these days to find partisan agreement on many issues, but Republicans, Democrats and independents all have a preference for permanent daylight saving time over permanent standard time,” CBS News reported in 2022, noting that “the Senate unanimously passed a bill making daylight saving time permanent,” but the House of Representatives has not voted on it.

That Senate bill was filed by U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), Trump’s Secretary of State nominee. Trump’s eldest son supports permanent daylight saving time.

Two years ago, the Senate unanimously passed Marco Rubio’s bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent. Couple weeks ago, Don Jr. tweeted in support of that concept. Today: Donald Trump proposes to eliminate Daylight Saving Time instead. pic.twitter.com/g9ValkUj9y

— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) December 13, 2024

ABC News adds that in 2019, Trump declared he preferred permanent daylight saving time, but “appears to be changing course now.”

“This comes as his DOGE directors, Tesla and X CEO Elon Musk and Republican businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, have advocated for the time change to be eliminated.

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“‘Looks like the people want to abolish the annoying time change,’ Musk posted in response to a poll on X calling for DST to be abolished,” ABC notes.

But Musk did not specify if he thought daylight saving time or standard time was better for the nation.

In the 1970s, legislation signed into law by President Richard Nixon eliminated standard time, and made daylight saving time permanent, as Business Insider reported two years ago. The bill initially had a whopping 80% approval. After several months of extreme darkness in the mornings, which led to more accidents including involving children going to school, public approval of the law dropped to 43%.

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No foreign head of state has attended the inauguration of any U.S. President, at least not in modern recorded times, but this week, President-elect Donald Trump invited the President of China to Washington, D.C. for the January 20, 2025 event. His invitation has been rebuffed.

“This is a power move to intimidate the Chinese leader—if he declines, it’s disrespectful, and Trump will take it personally,” Fox News host Jesse Watters trumpeted on Wednesday, praising the President-elect (video below). “And if he accepts, he’ll be forced to observe President Trump at his most powerful moment with all the presidential pageantry America can muster. You put Xi Jinping in a subservient position, plus you can spy on him the whole time he’s in D.C.”

According to a Trump advisor, CNN reports, the President-elect “is very eager to have world leaders at the inauguration,” and “wants a global stage” for his inauguration. Trump broke 152 years of precedent by not attending the inauguration of President Joe Biden, his successor in 2021.

But President Xi appears not to be worried about appearing to be “disrespectful.”

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“Chinese President Xi Jinping is not expected to travel to Washington next month as an inauguration guest of President-elect Donald Trump, according to two sources familiar with the planning,” CBS News reported Friday. “CBS News was first to report that Trump had personally invited Xi to the swearing-in ceremony shortly after Election Day.”

CBS also reports that Trump’s “invitation to Xi, which was conveyed outside of formal diplomatic channels, took both Beijing and U.S. allies by surprise. Chinese officials who are accustomed to strict protocol and keenly aware of power dynamics in the US-China relationship were left wondering about Mr Trump’s intent.”

Calling the invitation “an exceptionally rare offer extended to the communist leader of one of America’s chief geopolitical rivals,” CNN reports that Trump has been “eager to turn his inauguration into a global event,” and “is personally extending invitations to some foreign leaders, including heads of state that have clashed with the United States in the recent past.”

Among the list of foreign leaders Trump has invited are several far-right authoritarians.

“El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Argentinean President Javier Milei have also been invited by Trump or his team, sources confirmed to CNN. All three are close allies of Trump who have also shaken the nerves of the US and its allies at times for their embrace of strongman tactics and their far-right politics.”

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“The offers to attend his Washington fêting have been mostly informal, a person with knowledge of the conversations told CNN, and have sometimes come in passing during discussions over the phone about other matters. The person also said that some invitations have gone through back channels, not directly leader-to-leader, CNN also reports. “Trump has also dictated written invitations as well, a source familiar with the matter said, and had his team send them to foreign leaders.”

Newsweek adds that Trump is also considering inviting far-right authoritarian and Christian nationalist Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian Prime Minister, to his inauguration.

The Bulwark wants to know “what this invitation” to China’s President Xi “signifies for America’s relations with its allies in Asia. How does one think the Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, and Taiwanese received the news about this unprecedented invitation?”

“Another pertinent question is: What does Trump think he’s doing? Is this just more evidence of his insatiable desire to be at the center of world attention? Or is it something else?”

Watch the video below or at this link.

Watters: The President-Elect has invited XI jinping to witness his inauguration. A power move to intimidate the Chinese leader. If he declines, it’s disrespectful and Trump will take it personally and if he accepts, he will be forced to observe President Trump at his most… pic.twitter.com/7UEHnTTKKl

— Acyn (@Acyn) December 12, 2024

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Image: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons 

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a top financial services firm led by President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to become Secretary of Commerce with violating federal law, according to multiple reports.

Cantor Fitzgerald, led by its CEO and chairman Howard Lutnick, was charged by the SEC with “violating laws related to disclosures by so-called blank-check companies before they raise money from the public,” CNBC reports. “The SEC said that Cantor agreed to settle the case by saying the firm would not violate the relevant securities laws again and pay a $6.75 million civil penalty.”

Lutnick, a “major Republican donor, who donated millions to Trump’s campaign,” according to NPR, also serves as the co-chair of Trump’s presidential transition team. He was awarded that honor just two weeks after hosting a fundraiser for Trump at his home in the Hamptons that raised $15 million.

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“Among the roughly 130 people who dined under an air-conditioned tent were some of Donald Trump’s wealthiest supporters, including the billionaire hedge-fund financier Bill Ackman, who sat next to the former president, and Omeed Malik, the president of another fund, 1789 Capital,” The New York Times reported in August.

Lutnick, a cryptocurrency supporter, was described as “pugnacious” by The Financial Times this week in an article titled, “The criminal’s ‘go-to cryptocurrency’ has a new friend in the White House.”

“Howard Lutnick has defended the stablecoin company which has been used by gangs and US adversaries,” FT reported, sharing how he “regaled an audience of crypto devotees in Nashville with tales of his early days exploring the world of digital currencies.”

“’I met every criminal who’s now in prison,’ the 63-year-old joked, referring to his encounters with various youthful crypto executives now serving lengthy jail sentences for fraud.”

CNBC also reports the settlement is similar to one affecting became a Trump-related business.

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“Cantor’s settlement echoes an $18 million settlement another blank-check firm, Digital World Acquisition Corp., agreed to pay to the SEC in July 2023 after being charged with fraud for failing to disclose to investors that DWAC had extensive merger discussions with Trump’s then-private social media company, Trump Media. DWAC merged with Trump Media earlier this year.”

Before Election Day, Lutnick promoted the debunked conspiracy theory that vaccines cause autism, and suggested children who are vaccinated may not be “fine,” during a CNN interview (below). He also stated that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—who some describe as an anti-vaxxer and has said there are no vaccines that are safe and effective—would not be Trump’s nominee to head Health and Human Services (HHS), a prediction that turned out to be wrong.

Watch the video below or at this link.

Trump transition co-chair Howard Lutnick — in charge of helping staff the gov if he wins — says he had a 2.5 hour meeting with RFK Jr. who talked about pulling (safe and proven) vaccines from the market. Lutnick says RFK will not be in charge of HHS, despite what RFK said. pic.twitter.com/K6wFo6EwqP

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) October 31, 2024

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