Inflation Isn’t Over, And The Damage Will Continue

No one who has bought groceries recently or filled up their gas tank believes inflation is over. Yet recently economist Paul Krugman declared, “Inflation is over. We won.” I guess he doesn’t do the grocery shopping in his family. Yes, inflation has slowed. However, we are still dealing with the price increases that occurred in the past three years. If the baseline is where we were when President Biden took office, the inflation rate is somewhere over 15 percent. If we are talking about the past few months, the number is much lower. However, that number is in addition to the 15 percent that we have already been dealing with.

On Saturday, Real Clear Politics posted a commentary about the damage the Biden administration has done to the economy.

The commentary notes:

The truth is that the wild inflation, high interest rates, bank failures, and other economic harms of the last three years were all entirely avoidable and all entirely caused by President Biden and the Democrats’ arrogant and unwise policies.

This is not “Monday morning quarterbacking.” Some of us were saying this well before the fact. My May 7, 2021 column (“Joe Biden, Economy Killer”) accurately forecast the inflation, rising interest rates, and rising government debt service long before the Biden administration even acknowledged the risks were real.

The U.S. economy did not need another giant stimulus plan when Biden and the Democrats took control in 2021. The U.S. gross domestic product, knocked down by the COVID shutdown in the first half of 2020, had jumped up by a record 33% in the third quarter of 2020 and by another 4% in the fourth quarter, all before Biden took office. The S&P stock market had risen 16.3% in 2020. Employers were waiting for workers to come back to work, and another stimulus package had been passed with bipartisan support in the last quarter of 2020. Happily, the inflation rate was only 1.4% as 2020 ended, with a one-year Treasury rate of just 0.10% and a 10-year Treasury rate of just 0.95%

The commentary concludes:

The Congressional Budget Office last week revised its government deficit estimates upward, expecting $48.3 trillion of government debt by 2034. Interest expense on the federal debt this year has already jumped up to $870 billion, which is larger than the defense budget. Additionally, Biden’s higher interest rates will continue to increase debt service costs as old government debt rolls off and is replaced at higher costs. The risk is stark: a 3% higher interest rate on even the existing $33 trillion level of federal debt equates to $1 trillion of extra federal interest expense each and every year, on top of the already giant existing debt service number.

There is no painless way to pay down this deficit or cover this extra annual government interest cost. The need for billions and billions of extra tax money or budget cuts will fuel fierce political fights, populist divisions, and national anger for years to come. All this public unrest will also be the legacy of the bad Democratic economic policies since 2021. Professor Krugman, when it comes to Bidenomics, “We lost.”

I believe we can turn this around, but it will take an administration that includes people who have worked in the private sector and run businesses. Whatever administration is elected in November needs to include people hired for their qualifications and experience–not for any other reason.

Why It Matters

On Wednesday Real Clear Politics posted an article titled, “What the ‘Obamagate’ Scandals Mean and Why They Matter.” The article lists and details the scandals and why they matter. I will list them and then share the conclusion. Please follow the link to the article for further details.

The article lists the scandals:

Scandal No. 1: Massive, illegal surveillance of American citizens, using the database of the National Security Agency

Scandal No. 2: Spying on the Trump campaign

Scandal No. 3: Covering up this spying, continuing it during the new administration, charging that Trump was not legitimately elected, and impeding his presidency with major investigations, based on false charges

The article concludes:

Obama officials worked especially hard to remove incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Because Gen. Flynn was an experienced intelligence officer, he would surely uncover the surveillance of Trump’s campaign and transition and stop its continuation against the new administration. He had to go. Now we know just how low the Obama administration and Comey FBI sunk to make that happen: spying, unmasking, leaking classified phone calls, discarding FBI protocols to set up an entrapment interview based on a meaningless “legal violation,” and telling Trump directly, as Obama did, not to hire Flynn.

Beyond this destructive mission, Brennan loyalists at the CIA burrowed into Trump’s National Security Council while the FBI tried to plant agents in the White House itself. Most important of all, the Obama team and their congressional allies helped launch multiple, full-scale investigations of “Russian collusion” with no solid basis, plenty of contrived “evidence,” and breathless media headlines. It all failed, but not before it damaged Trump’s presidency and the basic tenets of liberal democracy.

It’s an ugly picture, one that goes beyond dirty tricks and the normal bounds of “loyal opposition.” We still have a lot to learn, but we already know a great deal. We know how grave the three scandals were. We know they fit together, forming something much larger. With each new tranche of declassified documents, we see something big and hideous emerging from the Swamp, a political scandal of profound import.

This information needs to be shouted to the American people. There are many Americans who still believe that President Trump did collude with the Russians, and they need to be told the truth. No one likes to admit that they believed a lie, but it is time to educate the American citizens on what the truth actually is.

How Does This Make Sense?

On Saturday, BizPacReview posted an article about some recent comments made by Fox News Analyst Juan Williams.

The article reports:

Fox News co-host Juan Williams vehemently disagreed with the praise for President Trump’s appearance at the March For Life rally, saying his attendance further “divides the country.”

The liberal co-host of “The Five” delivered his tone-deaf argument on Friday’s show, criticizing Trump for what many have lauded as a powerful message with his appearance at Friday’s event, making him the first sitting U.S. president to address the March for Life rally in person.

In January 2017, Real Clear Politics reported the following:

If politicians really want to show that they trust American women, then they should follow the advice of the overwhelming majority of us and restrict abortion in meaningful ways.

This means supporting the president’s action to ban funding of abortion internationally, which is supported by 83 percent of women, and same percentage of all Americans.

This means limiting abortion substantially through legislation. Nationwide, 77 percent of women support limiting abortion to – at most – the first trimester. That is slightly higher than the percentage of all Americans – 74 percent. Laws restricting abortion should be embraced, not resisted.

And 61 percent of women think it is important, or an immediate priority, for our government to restrict abortion in this way, a slightly higher percentage than the 59 percent of all Americans who hold this position.

Not surprisingly, the majority of American women (59 percent) say abortion is morally wrong, the same percentage of all Americans who agree.

And a majority of women (51 percent) believe that abortion causes more harm than good in the long run; 50 percent of all Americans agree.

According to Juan Williams, is the President prohibited from speaking out or supporting controversial issues? Doesn’t the President have the same First Amendment rights that all Americans have?

I don’t think abortion is what divides the country–I think that biased news that only reports things that support their agenda is actually what divides the country. Right Wing Granny is a politically-biased site–it says so in the title. I share facts, but I share them with opinion. It is very difficult right now to watch the mainstream media and find unbiased information–while the mainstream media is totally unwilling to admit that it is biased.

No, President Trump has not divided the country–those who despise the fact that he was elected and are willing to do anything to undermine his presidency are dividing the country.

Still Rigging Primaries

Evidently the Democrat Presidential candidates are being winnowed down to fit on one debate stage. However, the winnowing process is about as fair as Bernie Sanders’ primary run in 2016.

The American Thinker posted an article today with their observations:

Iconoclastic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard did the unforgiveable in the eyes of the hidebound Democratic Party establishment: She knocked down one their favorites, Kamala Harris. 

…Now, through the miracle of rule-rigging, the Democratic establishment has maneuvered to exact a price from her: No appearance at the next Democratic debate. No more taking down the next favorite.

Yesterday Real Clear Politics posted an article about the exclusion of Representative Gabbard.

The article notes:

Tulsi Gabbard is on the verge of being excluded from the next Democratic presidential debate on the basis of criteria that appear increasingly absurd.

Take, for instance, her poll standing in New Hampshire, which currently places Gabbard at 3.3% support, according to the RealClearPolitics average as of Aug. 20. One might suspect that such a figure would merit inclusion in the upcoming debates — especially considering she’s ahead of several candidates who have already been granted entry, including Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, and Andrew Yang. But the Democratic National Committee has decreed that the polls constituting this average are not sufficiently “qualifying.”

The article at RealClear Politics continues:

The absurdity mounts. A South Carolina poll published Aug. 14 by the Post and Courier placed Gabbard at 2%. One might have again vainly assumed that the newspaper with the largest circulation in a critical early primary state would be an “approved” sponsor per the dictates of the DNC, but it is not. Curious.

To recap: Gabbard has polled at 2% or more in two polls sponsored by the two largest newspapers in two early primary states, but the DNC — through its mysteriously incoherent selection process — has determined that these surveys do not count toward her debate eligibility. Without these exclusions, Gabbard would have already qualified. She has polled at 2% or more in two polls officially deemed “qualifying,” and surpassed the 130,000 donor threshold on Aug. 2. While the latter metric would seem more indicative of “grassroots support” — a formerly obscure Hawaii congresswoman has managed to secure more than 160,000 individual contributions from all 50 states, according to the latest figures from her campaign — the DNC has declared that it will prioritize polling over donors. In polls with a sample size of just a few hundred people, this means excluding candidates based on what can literally amount to rounding errors: A poll that places a candidate at 1.4% could be considered non-qualifying, but a poll that places a candidate at 1.5% is considered qualifying. Pinning such massive decisions for the trajectory of a campaign on insignificant fractional differences seems wildly arbitrary.

In Animal Farm by George Orwell, the pigs proclaim, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” I think that is the way the Democrat party runs their presidential primary elections.

 

What The Democrats Are Really Afraid Of

You can dismiss the turnout at Trump rallies versus the turnout for Democrat candidates. You can dismiss the tweets you may not like, but you can’t dismiss what is happening to the President’s approval numbers in minority communities.

The American Spectator posted an article today with the following headline, “Why Trump’s Approval Ratings Are Up Among Minorities.”

The article notes:

A mounting number of voter polls show that, despite shrill denunciations of the President by the Democrats for his alleged racism, Trump is enjoying a dramatic increase in his approval ratings among minorities. This isn’t, as some liberal news outlets and pundits have suggested, wishful thinking based on outlier polls. The trend began showing up in surveys early this year and appears to be gaining momentum. Some polls now show his approval numbers at 25 percent among African-American voters and 50 percent among Hispanic voters. If those figures hold for the next 15 months, they will render Trump unbeatable in November of 2020.

The article notes a number of reasons for the rising approval ratings. Among the Hispanic community, two reasons are the President’s stand on immigration and the economy. Those in the Hispanic community who followed the rules to become Americans do not support endless illegal immigration. Those in the Hispanic community have also seen a dramatic increase in employment opportunities and a decrease in unemployment. In the black community, people are asking why cities that have been controlled by Democrats for decades and given massive amounts of money by the government still look worse than cities in other countries that were totally destroyed during World War II. In other words, after voting Democrat for decades with no visible improvement in their situation, minorities are seeing positive change. Minorities have the lowest unemployment numbers in history. They are seeing employment opportunities they have not seen before. Pocketbook issues are having an impact on the way they view President Trump.

The article concludes:

The main reason for the surge in Trump’s Hispanic support, however, is the economy. As Steve Cortes, a member of the President’s Hispanic Advisory Council, points out:

Hispanics neither desire nor expect a laundry list of deliverables from government, but rather seek the conditions to advance and prosper independently.  As the most statistically entrepreneurial demographic in America, Hispanics have thrived amid the Trump boom as regulatory and tax relief unleashes a small business surge. Every American benefits from this new dynamism, but Hispanics most of all.

Hispanic voters, mind you, will be the largest ethnic minority in the electorate by 2020. They, combined with African Americans, may very well decide who will live in the White House after the next election. Moreover, the days when Democrats could win all of their votes by screeching “racism,” encouraging illegal immigration, and offering massive giveaway programs are probably over. President Trump appears to be building real support among minorities by providing genuine opportunity in a thriving economy. If he receives their support in anywhere near the percentages suggested above, he will win in 2020 no matter who runs against him.

The presidential election of 2020 will be very interesting.

Abetting Child Abuse

On July 3, Real Clear Politics posted an article titled, “Lara Logan Reports: Cartels “Renting Kids To Fake Families” Then Sending Them Back To Be “Recycled”.” There are a few things that need to be considered when discussing the crisis at our southern border. The first is that if either the Democrats or the Republicans in Congress wanted to end the crisis, they could. The Democrats want future voters, the swamp-dwellers in the Republican party want cheap labor for their corporate sponsors. There are also rumors of payoffs to Congressmen by the cartels, but that isn’t yet proven. Second of all, the crisis at the border is being used as a political cudgel against a President the swamp does not like. As long as the crisis is useful, it will continue. Any mention of compassion is simply window dressing to cover actions that do not include compassion. I’m sorry if that sounds cynical, but it is honest. Congress makes the laws. If the laws are bad, Congress can change them. The same applies to any deportations this weekend. The deportations are in accordance with the laws currently in place. If Congress does not like the laws, it should change them—not scream hysterically when they are followed.

The article reports:

Lara Logan interviews incoming Acting Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection Mark Morgan about the uproar over conditions for children at some border facilities and broken laws that led to the migrant crisis.

Morgan said cartels are “renting” children to “fake families” who use the minors as a passport into the United States and then sends the kid back to Mexico or Central America to be “recycled.”

“With Mexican cartels controlling the human traffic, the innocent are paying the highest price,” Logan reported.

“The cartels are renting kids to fake families because they know, grab a kid, that’s like a US passport into the country,” Morgan said. “And then if they make it through, they’re actually taking the kid to a facilitator here in the US and recycling the kid, back to Mexico or the Northern Triangles to be recycled again. That’s horrible.”

“Now that we’ve been identifying these fake families, we’re starting to hear messages being told now, hey, look, you have to grab a kid. It’s your passport into the United States but you may want to make sure that it’s your kid now,” the acting commissioner said.

This is the video of the interview:

This is the consequence of the inaction of Congress to deal with this problem during the past fifty years.

Telling Only Half The Story To Paint The Picture You Want

Yesterday Townhall posted an article about the Mueller Report and the Russian collusion charges. Last week I posted an article about the misrepresentation of Konstantin Kilimnik, portrayed in the Mueller Report as a “Russian asset” when in fact he was a source for American intelligence. In May I posted an article about Joseph Mifsud, also portrayed as a “Russian asset” when in fact he was training American intelligence agents in Italy. It seems that the Mueller Report spent a lot of time grasping at straws. There is also the matter of editing a phone message to make it appear as something it was not. The Mueller Report is not the objective document it is supposed to be.

The Townhall article deals with the charges that Carter Page was colluding with Russia.

The article reports:

The Department of Justice inspector general is said to be readying a scorching report on the alleged FISA abuses. It’s expected to be released this summer. At the heart of the Trump-Russia collusion nonsense is Spygate and the FISA warrant secured to monitor Page based off this dossier. First, there’s the allegation that FBI, or the CIA, tried to infiltrate the Trump campaign based on this Russian collusion hysteria. The second part is the FBI citing this dossier as credible evidence to secure a spy warrant on Page. It was renewed three times through 2017. Political opposition research was cited to secure a spy warrant on the rival campaign from the sitting presidential administration of the opposing party during an election year. Yeah, one could argue that’s weaponizing the DOJ to go after your enemies. How much did Obama know? Also, welcome to this circus, State Department. 

The officials in the Obama administration knew that this was biased trash days prior to securing the FISA warrant is bad enough. Another odd angle is that this very intelligence community knew Carter Page because he worked with the CIA, the State Department, and the FBI…before he became a Russian traitor or something (via RCP):

“I was asked various questions, not only by State, FBI, etc, but also the CIA,” he said. “I had a long-standing relationship with the CIA going back decades essentially, and I was always very transparent, open.”

“I had a longstanding relationship with the CIA, going back decades, essentially,” Page said. “I was always very transparent, open.”

The Mueller Report was an opportunity to provide a factual account of bad behavior during the 2016 election. Unfortunately the report turned a blind eye to actual foreign intervention and went on a witch hunt instead. It is my hope that the people involved in the misuse of government agencies and the witch hunt will be brought to justice.

Irony At Its Best

The Trump tax cuts made life a little easier for most Americans. They made life a little more difficult for some middle class and wealthy people in states with high taxes. Oddly enough, many of these states with high taxes are blue states with large populations and huge state budgets. Some of the most affected states were California, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, all reliably blue states. Those states control 116 Electoral College votes and send 106 Representatives to the U.S. House of Representatives (out of 435 total Representatives). Now, after all the complaining that the Trump tax cuts were tax cuts for the rich (which they were not), Democrats want to give the wealthy in high-tax states their tax cuts.

Real Clear Politics posted an article today about the Democrats’ plan.

The article reports:

Democrats often complain that tax cuts primarily benefit “the rich,” but apparently they only think it’s a problem when rich conservatives get a tax break, because they’re outraged that President Trump’s tax cuts scaled back a generous subsidy enjoyed by well-off taxpayers in liberal states.

A key provision of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was a new cap on the so-called State and Local Tax (“SALT”) Deduction, which allows taxpayers to deduct state and local taxes on their federal tax return. This provision forces taxpayers in low-tax states such as Florida and Texas to effectively subsidize those in high-tax states such as New York and California.

For years, blue-state Democrats have been able to raise state income and property taxes far higher than voters might normally tolerate. That’s because the SALT deduction softened the impact for taxpayers in those states, particularly for the rich campaign-donor class. Since the SALT deduction only applies to taxpayers who itemize their returns, its benefits naturally accrue to those in the highest income bracket.

There was previously no limit to how much taxpayers could deduct through SALT, but even though the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act capped the deduction at $10,000, almost 93 percent of American taxpayers will be unaffected. It’s likely that fewer taxpayers will elect to take advantage of SALT, since the law also doubled the standard deduction, but about 11 million of the highest-earning Americans living in high-tax states are seeing their federal income tax liabilities increase.

It’s curious that liberals who criticized Trump so vociferously for “cutting taxes on the wealthy” are so upset by an element of the tax reform plan that merely takes away a tax break enjoyed disproportionately by the wealthy.

The problem here is simple. The Democrats believe that President Trump cut taxes for the rich (which he didn’t), but it was the wrong rich. However, just for the record, since most of the tax burden falls on Americans who are relatively successful, their tax cuts are going to seem larger than those who pay little or no taxes.

The following chart is from a Pew Research article. The figures are from 2015:

People who make over $100,000 (which in some areas of the country is not a lot of spending power) pay over 80% of all income taxes paid. I think we need to reopen the discussion of a flat tax. Everyone needs to have an equal stake in the game.

It’s All A Matter Of Perspective

Yesterday Newsbusters posted an article about a recent ABC News panel that was absolutely hilarious (not intentionally of course).

The article reports:

With nearly the entire Democratic 2020 field sprinting to be the closest to socialism without using the label, folks in the liberal media were busy trying to spin their radical policy positions as something palatable. A great example of this occurred during ABC’s This Week on Sunday, when two panelists tried to suggest that it was Republicans who were the radical ones with Democrats supposedly as the centrists.

During the “powerhouse roundtable” discussion late in the show, Republican strategist Alice Stewart noted that the candidates could “run away from the socialism label” all they wanted “but you can’t deny the fact that the Democratic Party is moving very, very far to the left.”

“We’re talking about a lot of policies that are extremely left. The Cortezs of Washington and the younger generation of Democrats are really causing a divide in the Democratic Party,” she added before triggered faux-Republican Matthew Dowd couldn’t hold back anymore.

Talking over Stewart, Dowd emphatically insisted it was the Republicans who were the ones who were out of touch with Americans: “The Democratic Party — if you look at all the issues and where the public stands, the Democratic Party is actually closer to the center than the Republican Party is. The Democratic Party is much closer to the center.”

Meanwhile ideas such as socialism, free education, free healthcare, and generally free money are gaining acceptance in the Democrat Party.

Wow. So let’s look at some of the other issues.

President Trump supports strong borders (and a wall). In January a Rasmussen poll showed that 48 percent of Americans felt that the government was doing too little to stop illegal immigration. On March 13th, Rasmussen reported that 56% of Likely U.S. Voters say Democrats should allow Fox News, the most-watched cable news network, to host at least one of their intraparty debates. Just 28% disagree, while 15% are undecided. On January 18th, Real Clear Politics reported that more Americans may identify as pro-choice than pro-life, but more than six in 10 of those who say they are pro-choice (61 percent) join the three-quarters of all Americans in wanting abortion restricted to – again, at most – the first trimester. So do about six in 10 Democrats (59 percent), eight in 10 independents (78 percent) and nine in 10 Republicans (92 percent).

In January 2018, the Pew Research Center reported the following:

The latest national survey by Pew Research Center, conducted Jan. 10-15 among 1,503 adults, finds that 42% say Donald Trump is “striking the right balance” in the situation in the Middle East, while 30% say he favors Israel too much (just 3% say Trump sides too much with the Palestinians; 25% do not offer an opinion).

At a similar point in Barack Obama’s presidency, 47% of Americans said he had struck a proper balance in dealing with the Middle East; 21% said he sided too much with the Palestinians, while 7% said he favored Israel too much.

I’m not sure it’s the Republicans who are out of touch with the American people. They are probably out of touch with the people in New York, California, and Washington, D.C., but I am not sure how out of touch they are with most Americans.

Unfortunately No One Wins In This Scenario

Lisa Page’s testimony stated that the Department of Justice prevented the FBI from charging Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information. That may or may not have something to do with a meeting on an airport tarmac, but that is the situation.  Let’s take a trip back in time to reexamine the entire picture.

If the FBI had indicted Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information during the political campaign, Bernie Sanders would have been the candidate and Donald Trump would probably have won. The Democrats would have been up in arms that Donald Trump won unfairly. They are claiming that anyway, but not too many people believe them! Since the Democrats expected Hillary Clinton would win, they assumed the story of the private server would disappear as soon as she took office. Well she lost, and the story is back. But let’s take a look at the consequences of the server.

On October 27, 2016, Real Clear Politics posted the following quote by Charles Krauthammer:

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: This brings us back full circle to the beginning. The question was originally: Why did she have the private server? She said convenience, obviously that was ridiculous…

It was obvious she was hiding something.

And think about it, she set it up in 2009, before becoming Secretary of State. So, she anticipated having exchanges that she would not want anyone to see. So, we’ve been asking ourselves on this set for a year almost, what exactly didn’t she want people to see?

Well, now we know.

And as we speculated, the most plausible explanation was the rank corruption of the Clinton Foundation, and its corrupt — I don’t know if it’s illegal, but corrupt relationship with the State Department.

And her only defense as we saw earlier– the Democrats are saying, well, there was nothing she did… that was corrupted by donations. You can believe that if you want, but there’s a reason that people give donations in large amounts, and that’s to influence the outcome of decisions. So, this — we are getting unfolding to us, exactly what she anticipated having to hide, and it is really dirty business.

I miss Charles Krauthammer.

But there is another aspect to this. On August 29, 2018, The Federalist Papers reported:

A new report shows that the Chinese hacked Hillary’s homebrew communication server and reports indicate the Chinese killed 12 CIA sources while the server was at her residence.

The article included quotes from the Daily Caller News Foundation:

…“The Chinese wrote code that was embedded in the server, which was kept in Clinton’s residence in upstate New York. The code generated an instant ‘courtesy copy’ for nearly all of her emails and forwarded them to the Chinese company, according to the sources.”

In other words, an American secretary of state who felt entitled to work on her own amateurish computer system had exposed all of her correspondence to one of the country’s most powerful and dangerous rivals in world affairs.

And it’s very possible that at least 12 operatives serving United States intelligence agencies paid for Clinton’s security breach with their lives.

According to a New York Times report from May 2017, a successful Chinese counterintelligence operation that started in 2010 “systematically dismantled C.I.A. spying operations in the country starting in 2010, killing or imprisoning more than a dozen sources over two years and crippling intelligence gathering there for years afterward.”

“From the final weeks of 2010 through the end of 2012, according to former American officials, the Chinese killed at least a dozen of the C.I.A.’s sources,” The Times reported. “According to three of the officials, one was shot in front of his colleagues in the courtyard of a government building — a message to others who might have been working for the C.I.A.”

Maybe it’s a coincidence, but 2010 was Clinton’s first full year as secretary of state.

So what do we do with Hillary Clinton? If she were anyone but Hillary Clinton, she would be sitting in jail somewhere. However, if she is charged under a Republican administration, the Democrats will cry that the charges are political. But if she is not charged with the mishandling of classified information, it will be political. How in the world do you solve the accountability problem and the political problem?

The Power Of The Media Illustrated

This is the current polling from RealClearPolitics:

This is some recent economic news reported by The Washington Times on January 9:

Given the dazzling December economic data, it’s no wonder the press gave it short shrift. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the economy added a whopping 312,000 jobs, far more than the expected 176,000. After revisions, job gains have averaged an impressive 254,000 per month over the past three months. Job growth in 2018 (an average of 220,000 per month) passed that of both 2016 (195,000) and 2017 (182,000). Payrolls increased by 2.6 million in 2018, the highest since 2015.

The sunny jobs picture encouraged 419,000 new workers to enter the workforce and sent the labor force participation rate up to 63.1 percent. Unemployment rates among blacks, Latinos and women are at or near historic lows.

Job growth has also meant significant wage growth. Wages are up a stunning 3.2 percent from last year and .4 percent from November. December was the third straight month that the yearlong growth in nominal average hourly earnings was above 3 percent in nearly a decade; the last time we saw that trend was April 2009. Wages are also being given an assist by inflation being kept in check.

The article at The Washington Times concludes:

His (President Trump’s) astounding economic track record is their worst nightmare. It puts the lie to the nonsense Mr. Obama, the Democrats and the media have been shoveling for years: That anemic economic growth, high unemployment, the collapse of manufacturing and grotesque trade imbalances were the “new normal.”

It also pointedly demonstrates that the statist vision — radical wealth redistribution, socialized medicine, green energy chimeras, social justice enforcement, limits on free speech, private property and gun ownership, and the rule of the leftist mob — creates only tyranny, poverty, injustice and servitude. (Note the deflection: These are things the left claims to want to eradicate.)

Mr. Trump and his economic thunderbolt are exposing the left and its policies as irredeemably bankrupt, economically and morally. And that is perhaps the biggest reason why they must try to destroy him.

A lot of this economic news has not been reported. However, people do notice when there are more jobs available and there is more money in their paycheck. President Trump’s approval numbers are finally in positive numbers. The economy is booming. What would be the basis for most Americans believing America is headed in the wrong direction? Might it be the constant negative reporting from the media? Can you imaging what President Trump’s approval rating would be if the media were actually balanced? Just remember–the people vote. The media represents only a small percentage of votes.

Some Things To Consider As We Await The Inspector General’s Report

Real Clear Politics posted an article today by Victor Davis Hansen that reminds us of the recent history of Inspectors General. The article is titled, “The Silencing of the Inspectors General.”

The article reminds us:

For nearly eight years, the Obama administration sought to cover up serial wrongdoing by waging a veritable war against the watchdog inspectors general of various federal agencies.

In 2014, 47 of the nation’s 73 inspectors general signed a letter alleging that Obama had stonewalled their “ability to conduct our work thoroughly, independently, and in a timely manner.”

The frustrated nonpartisan auditors cited systematic Obama administration refusals to turn over incriminating documents that were central to their investigations.

The administration had purportedly tried to sidetrack an IG investigation into possible misconduct by then-Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. In addition, the Obama administration reportedly thwarted IG investigations of Amtrak, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Troubled Asset Relief Program and the Office of Management and Budget.

Despite the campaign against these independent federal auditors, a number of inspectors general still managed to issue damning indictments of unethical behavior.

In 2012, Horowitz recommended that 14 Justice Department and ATF officials be disciplined for their conduct in the “Fast and Furious” gun-walking scandal.

A 2013 IG audit found that the IRS had targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny prior to the 2012 Obama re-election effort.

The article cites the 2014 audit that revealed that the CIA had hacked Senate Intelligence Committee’s computers. In 2016, it was revealed that Hillary Clinton had never sought approval for her private email server. Obviously the Inspectors General were not successful in holding people in government accountable for their actions in these various scandals. The Inspectors General do not have the power the criminally prosecute, but they can refer people for criminal prosecution. Obviously, there are a number of cases where this needs to be done.

The article concludes:

Soon, various inspector general reports may appear concerning FISA court abuse and improper behavior at the Department of Justice, FBI, CIA and National Security Council during the 2016 campaign cycle. The investigators are, for the most part, Obama appointees, not Trump appointees.

At some point, the idea of toothless inspectors general needs to be revisited. Something is terribly wrong when dozens of IGs found wrongdoing, only to object that their efforts were being thwarted by an Obama administration that had appointed most of them — and claimed to be scandal-free.

Finding government abuse and doing nothing about it is worse than not finding any at all.

With Friends Like These…

Hot Air posted an article yesterday about an amazing statement by President Obama. President Obama’s current approval rating according to Real Clear Politics is averaging about 41.4 percent this month (somehow the mainstream media is not reporting this fact). Keeping that in mind, consider this quote from a recent speech:

“Well, look, here’s the bottom line,” said Obama, “We’ve got a tough map. A lot of the states that are contested this time are states that I didn’t win. And so some of the candidates there, you know, it is difficult for them to have me in the state because the Republicans will use that to try to fan Republican turn-out. The bottom line is, though, these are all folks who vote with me. They have supported my agenda in Congress. They are on the right side of minimum wage. They are on the right side of fair pay. They are on the right side of rebuilding our infrastructure. They’re on the right side of early childhood education.

“So, this isn’t about my feelings being hurt. These are folks who are strong allies and supporters of me. And I tell them, I said, you know what, you do what you need to win. I will be responsible for making sure that our voters turn up.”

If you were a Democrat candidate running for Congress, how would you feel about that statement?

Only One Person Has Been Fired In The Healthcare Rollout

The roll-out of ObamaCare has been a disaster. So far more people have lost their insurance plans under ObamaCare than have signed up. The website is not secure, is not always available, and is a nightmare to navigate. So who got fired? The navigator who talked to Sean Hannity on the telephone this week.

Yesterday Real Clear Politics reported that Earline Davis, the person who received the phone call from Sean Hannity on his radio show and answered his questions, was fired. Sean Hannity has offered to pay her a year’s salary and help her find a new job.

Ms. Davis explained that her training had not included instructions not to talk to the media and that she was just trying to do her job–answering questions honestly and helping Sean Hannity understand ObamaCare.

It is very interesting to me that the only person who has been fired in the ObamaCare debacle is Earline Davis.

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Why It Is Difficult To Get Anything Done In Washington

It’s not just that President Obama seems to be spending all of his time away from the White House–either on the road or the golf course–it is what he is saying when he addresses crowds on the road.

Yesterday RealClearPolitics posted the following:

“My plan says we’re going to put teachers back in the classrooms, construction workers back to work,” President Obama said at a campaign event today. “Tax cuts for small businesses, tax cuts for hiring veterans, tax cuts if you give your workers a raise –- that’s my plan.”

“The Republicans plan, Obama says, boils down to this: ‘Dirtier air, dirtier water, less people with health insurance.'”

First of all, based on his past performance, does anyone really believe President Obama wants to lower anyone’s taxes? Second of all, Republicans have families too. Does anyone believe they support dirty air, dirty air, and no health insurance? These are the kind of statements that make bipartisanship almost impossible.

The Hill posted the following yesterday:

President Obama mocked the intelligence of Republicans on Monday while making the first stop of his three-day bus tour, implying GOP lawmakers didn’t pass his $447 billion jobs bill because they weren’t smart enough to understand it. 

“Maybe they just couldn’t understand the whole thing all at once,” Obama said during an address in Asheville, N.C., that had all the trappings of a 2012 campaign event, including a crowd chanting, “Four more years.”

 “So we’re going to break it up into bite-size pieces so they can take a thoughtful approach to this legislation,” Obama said one week after the Senate rejected moving forward on the jobs bill.  

The fact that the taxpayers are paying for this campaign tour is annoying enough, but the attitude of the President makes it very hard to move forward together. The election is more than a year away, and the President is in campaign mode being totally obnoxious.

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