Let’s Hold The Media Accountable For Their Malfeasance

On Monday, Townhall posted an article about a claim made about Republican Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno during the closing days of the primary election.

The article reports:

Republican Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno was slapped with nasty tricks during the primary’s closing days. Ohioans go to the polls on March 19 to decide whether Moreno, endorsed by Trump, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, and JD Vance, will prevail over Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose or State Sen. Matt Dolan. The race has tightened to the point where even Democrats are starting to meddle. Yet, one attack was particularly slimy: Moreno signed up on Adult Friend Finder in 2008, seeking the company of young men. 

There are some that believe that if that were the case he would fit in perfectly with the Washington establishment.

The article continues:

It’s not true. The founder of Adult Friend Finder said when he analyzed the data, even though Moreno’s email address was used, it seemed to be an activity you’d see from a prank. Indeed, it was a prank, as a former intern already admitted as much. The Associated Press ran with the story, but even their communications director admitted they had nothing to corroborate it, opening the news outlet to a massive lawsuit. Jonathan Turley wrote if Moreno should file a lawsuit and it reaches the discovery phase; embarrassment can be re-directed at AP. Who wants some scalps?

The article adds that the AP could not corroborate the story and that Dan Ricci, a former intern, claimed to have created the account as a prank. Still AP ran with the story.

This is one of many reasons Americans do not trust the mainstream media. It would be nice to see the AP held responsible for this smearing of a candidate right before a primary election with no confirmation of the story.

Not A Surprise

The Conservative Treehouse posted an article today about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It is a long, involved article, so I suggest you follow the link and read the entire article. The Conservative Treehouse does extensive research and reports on that research in detail, so it is very difficult to summarize their articles.

The article reports:

A fifteen year argument is finally over…. We win.  Most CTH readers probably don’t even remember the reason for the name: “The Last Refuge” upon this little corner of the internet.  However, for well over a decade we have tried to share the truth behind the financial mechanisms that run Washington DC; and the primary machine has always been a completely corrupt, deceptive and anti-American U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Against the entirety of the conservative media; and against the entirety of every organized group that ever attended CPAC; this website has attempted to educate people about the genuinely fraudulent purposes of the U.S. CoC and their President Tom Donohue.  I have written hundreds of articles over the years outlining “there are trillions at stake” and the elements of importance behind that statement.   Every single mainstream conservative voice has denied the truth; and likely most of them are probably on the CoC payroll.

The article explains the difference between an economy that enriches Wall Street and an economy that enriches Main Street. It points out the various trade deals that the Chamber of Commerce has supported enrich Wall Street at the expense of Main Street. It also notes that the economic policies of the Trump administration tend to enrich Main Street and not Wall Street (which is one reason he is hated by the Washington establishment of both parties).

The article concludes:

The U.S. stock markets’ overall value can increase with Main Street policy, and yet the investment class can simultaneously decrease in value even though the company(ies) in the stock market is/are doing better. This detachment is critical to understand because the ‘real economy’ is based on the company, the ‘paper economy’ is based on the financial investment instruments betting on the company.

Trillions can be lost in investment instruments, and yet the overall stock market -as valued by company operations/profits- can increase.

Conversely, there are now classes of companies on the U.S. stock exchange that never make a dime in profit, yet the value of the company increases. This dynamic is possible because the financial investment bets are not connected to the bottom line profit. (Examples include Tesla Motors, Amazon and a host of internet stocks like Facebook and Twitter.) It is this investment group of companies that stands to lose the most if/when the underlying system of betting on them stops or slows.

Specifically due to most recent U.S. fiscal policy, modern multinational banks, including all of the investment products therein, are more closely attached to this investment system on Wall Street. It stands to reason they are at greater risk of financial losses overall with a shift in fiscal policy.

That financial and economic risk is the basic reason behind Trump and Mnuchin putting a protective, secondary and parallel, banking system in place for Main Street.

Big multinational banks can suffer big losses from their investments, and yet the Main Street economy can continue growing, and have access to capital, uninterrupted.

Bottom Line: U.S. companies who have actual connection to a growing U.S. economy can succeed; based on the advantages of the new economic environment and MAGA policy, specifically in the areas of manufacturing, trade and the ancillary benefactors.

Meanwhile U.S. investment assets (multinational investment portfolios) that are disconnected from the actual results of those benefiting U.S. companies, and as a consequence also disconnected from the U.S. economic expansion, can simultaneously drop in value even though the U.S. economy is thriving.

Amazing.

President Trump And The Black Vote

After hearing the protesters at the Independence Day boat parade yell, “What do we want? Trump dead,” I wondered how much of the black population of America is aware of the things President Trump has done to help the black community move forward.

Yesterday The New York Post posted an article detailing some of the things President Trump has done to help the black community.

The article notes:

Back home in the US, African Americans were experiencing the best economy we have ever seen: Unemployment for our racial group was the lowest in recorded history, black wages were rapidly increasing for the first time in decades, and people who’d been out of work long-term were being hired and suddenly able to take their families on vacations for the first time in years.

…I personally do not agree with everything President Trump says or does, and I often find myself on national TV as a conservative pundit saying exactly that. But I would be lying if I didn’t tell you that Trump has been one of the most impactful presidents for African Americans from a policy perspective — and that’s what matters.

His recent police-reform executive order, the First Step Act, released thousands of people from jail (90 percent of whom were black). He has promoted “opportunity zones” that incentivized private investment into marginalized communities, and also increased federal funding to historically black colleges and universities by 17 percent — a total exceeding $100 million, more than any president in history. Meanwhile, the Obama administration infamously removed a two-year Bush-administration program that annually funded $85 million directly to these prized institutions.

As I mention in my book, “Taken For Granted,” during the 2016 election Trump did something few Republicans had the courage to do — he targeted the black vote and spoke directly to African-American issues.

He was not afraid of saying the “wrong thing” (and, yes, he sometimes did) while achieving the ultimate goal of creating real dialogue and opportunity in communities largely ignored by both parties. In return, he received only 8 percent of the black vote generally, and 12 percent of black men. (By comparison, Romney earned 6 percent of the black vote.) But after three years in office, having delivered on so many issues for black voters, Trump’s support among black men had risen to 24 percent, according to one February poll.

President Trump is gaining support among black voters who are actually paying attention to what the President is doing. That may be the reason the Democrats are working so hard to stir up racial tension. The deep state has a vested interest in preventing the re-election of President Trump. (see previous article). The Washington establishment is willing to use any weapon at their disposal, regardless of the cost to Americans. Power is the goal, and any method to gain it will be used.

Please read the entire article at The New York Post to see the details of what President Trump has done to help all Americans be successful.

Why Does The Establishment (Republicans and Democrats) Hate Donald Trump?

Yesterday Victor Davis Hanson posted an article at American Greatness titled, “Why Do They Hate Him So?” The article analyzes the reasons that President Trump is opposed by both the political left and the establishment right.

The article states:

Again, why the unadulterated hatred? For the small number of NeverTrumpers, of course, Trump’s crudity in speech and crassness in manner nullify his accomplishments: the unattractive messenger has fouled an otherwise tolerable message.

While they recognize in the abstract that the randy JFK, the repugnant LBJ, and the horny Bill Clinton during their White House tenures were far grosser in conduct than has been Donald Trump, they either assume presidential ethics should have evolved or they were not always around to know of past bad behavior first hand, or believe Trump’s crude language is worse than prior presidents’ crude behavior in office.

The article continues:

Had Donald Trump in his first month as president declared that he was a centrist Republican —as many suspicious Never Trumpers predicted that he would, true to past form—and promoted cap-and-trade and solar and wind federal subsidies, tabled pipeline construction and abated federal leasing for gas and oil production, stayed in the Iran nuclear deal and Paris Climate Accord, appointed judges in the tradition of John Paul Stevens and David Souter, praised the “responsible” Palestinian leaders, pursued “comprehensive immigration reform” as a euphemism for blanket amnesties, then Trump would be treated largely as a George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush: hated, of course, but not obsessively so.

More importantly, had Trump just collapsed or stagnated the economy, as predicted by the likes of Paul Krugman and Larry Summers, he would now be roundly denounced, but again not so vilified, given his political utility for the Left in 2020 as a perceived Herbert Hoover-esque scapegoat.

Had Trump kept within the media and cultural sidelines by giving interviews to “60 Minutes,” speaking at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, bringing in a few old Republican hands to run the staff or handle media relations like a David Gergen or Andrew Card, Trump would have been written off as a nice enough dunce.

But Trump did none of that. So, the hatred of the media, the Left, the swamp, and the celebrity industry is predicated more on the successful Trump agenda. He is systematically undoing what Barack Obama wrought, in the manner Obama sought to undo with his eight years the prior eight years of George W. Bush.

But whereas the Obama economy stagnated and his foreign policy was seen by adversaries and rivals as a rare occasion to recalibrate the world order at American’s expense, Trump mostly did not fail—at least not yet. We are currently in an economic boom while most of the world economy abroad is inert. Had the economy just crashed as predicted, the Trump agenda would have been discredited and he would be written off a pitiful fool rather than an existential monster.

Again, hatred arises at what Trump did even more than what he says or how he says it.

The obvious conclusion:

The bipartisan Washington establishment? If an outsider Manhattan wheeler-dealer without military or political experience can at last call an appeased China to account, can avoid a Libyan fiasco, can acknowledge that America is tired of a 18-year slog in Afghanistan when others would not, or believes ISIS thrived as a result of prior arcane restrictive U.S. rules of engagement—and he is proven largely right—then what does that say about the credentialed experts who dreamed up the bipartisan conventional wisdom that with a few more concessions China would eventually become Palo Alto or that Libya would bloom at the heart of the Arab Spring?

The Left detests Trump for a lot of reasons besides winning the 2016 election and aborting the progressive project. But mostly they hate his guts because he is trying and often succeeding to restore a conservative America at a time when his opponents thought that the mere idea was not just impossible but unhinged.

And that is absolutely unforgivable.

Be prepared for a very nasty year before the election in 2020. There are a lot of very unhinged people in politics and in the media.

Two Sides Of The Same Coin

There is really one political party in Washington, D.C. It is made up of establishment politicians of both parties. They are an elite group that tends to make a lot of noise when an outsider invades their group. This group wants any outsider to fail, regardless of what that failure would mean to the country. The name of the game is protecting their elite circle and its power. Donald Trump has really messed up that circle and revealed for what it is. That is why ObamaCare is still with us, the wall has not been built, and tax reform is questionable at best. That is also why the media made such a big deal of a Democrat winning a gubernatorial race in a state that previously had a Democratic governor.

The latest attempt at keeping an outsider out of Washington is the current salacious attack on Roy Moore, currently running for the U. S. Senate in Alabama. Suddenly candididate Moore is charged with having inappropriate relationships with underage girls thirty plus years ago. Think Clarence Thomas and Herman Cain–somehow the charges were not pursued after they made the confirmation of Judge Thomas very difficult and after Herman Cain withdrew from the presidential race.

Judge Moore has been a judge since he was appointed in 1992.

Wikipedia reports:

In 1992, Etowah County Circuit Judge Julius Swann died in office. Republican Governor H. Guy Hunt was charged with making a temporary appointment until the next election. Moore’s name was floated by some of his associates, and a background check was initiated with several state and county agencies, including the Etowah County district attorney’s office. Moore’s former political opponent Jimmy Hedgspeth, who still helmed the D.A.’s office, recommended Moore despite personal reservations, and Moore was installed in the position he had failed to win in 1982. “The impossible had happened!” Moore wrote afterward. “God had given me something that I had not been able to obtain through my own efforts.” Judge Moore ran as a Republican in the 1994 Etowah County election and was elected to the circuit judge seat (6 year term) with 62% of the vote. He was the first county-wide Republican to win since the Reconstruction.

That was 25 years ago. If the charges were true, they would have been much more current then. Why were the charges not brought out then? Judge Moore is 70 years old. Even if the charges were true, there have been no other similar charges in the past 25 years. Why?

This has the total appearance of a smear campaign to end the candidacy of someone the Washington establishment does not like. The behavior, if it were true, would be gross, but I seriously doubt it is true. It is more likely that the elites in Washington are threatened by the growing influence of Steve Bannon and by the fact that a man of integrity may show up in the Senate and join forces with the few men of integrity that are already there.,

 

The Danger Within

The biggest danger to America right now is not from outside the country–it is from within. The danger comes from a well-established, well-funded, totally entrenched group of people in Washington who are afraid that President Trump will upset their apple cart and take away their goodies. What they don’t realize is the the success of President Trump is very closely related to the success of America–if President Trump is driven from office, it is quite possible that our representative republic will dissolve into chaos. At that point, no political party wins and everyone loses.

The Washington Free Beacon posted an article today about the efforts to undermine and eventually oust President Trump by a coalition of Marxists, globalists, bankers, Islamists, and establishment Republicans.

The article reports:

Rich Higgins, until recently director of strategic planning at the NSC, revealed the program in a seven-page memorandum produced in May that warns of a concerted information warfare campaign by the Marxist left, Islamists, and political leaders and government officials opposed to the populist president.

“The Trump administration is suffering under withering information campaigns designed to first undermine, then delegitimize and ultimately remove the president,” Higgins states.

“This is not politics as usual but rather political warfare at an unprecedented level that is openly engaged in the direct targeting of a seated president through manipulation of the news cycle,” he said.

Higgins, an Army veteran and former Pentagon official who specialized in irregular warfare and who was dismissed last month for writing the memo, said the attacks should not be confused with normal partisan political attacks or adversarial media attention.

The former aide criticized the White House for failing to counter the activities and said the political warfare attacks threaten the Trump presidency.

I am not sure there is a way to counter these activities other than by the use of the President’s Twitter account and the basic economic success of the President’s programs. Actually, I think the opponents of the President fear his economic success more than they fear anything else. The idea that someone outside the ‘club’ can be successful is frightening to any member of the Washington establishment.

What is currently going on in Washington is the equivalent of the ‘cool’ kids in high school holding tight control over who sits at their lunch table. A kid they do not consider cool has become popular and has chosen not to join them at their table. Every smear campaign possible that might put the cool kids back in control will be attempted. That is where we are.

The July Jobs Report

I am not an economist, and I don’t play one on television, but I am capable of basic observations. The July jobs numbers came out Friday. This put the rather biased media in a position of having to say that the report beat expectations. When do they ever get their expectations right?

The Wall Street Journal posted the statistics on Friday. Here are some highlights:

The economy created 209,000 jobs in July, well above this year’s average monthly gain of 184,000.

…The jobless rate fell by a tenth of percentage point to 4.3%, matching May as the lowest level of unemployment in 16 years. It declined despite an expansion in the labor force.

…The average hourly wage for private-sector workers grew 2.5% in July. That’s a modest pace historically, but it looks better when considering inflation is so low.

…The share of Americans holding jobs or actively looking for work rose a tenth of a percentage point last month to 62.9%. That’s very slight progress.

…A measure underemployment—one that takes into account jobless workers, reluctant part-time workers and Americans too discouraged to look for work—remained at 8.6%. That’s two tenths of percentage point higher than May’s level, though it’s down more than a point from the prior year.

You can’t turn eight years of anemic economic growth around in seven months. However, we are definitely moving in the right direction. Despite the lack of cooperation from the Washington establishment, President Trump is deregulating and moving forward. If we are to see real economic growth, we need to drain the swamp of those establishment politicians who are blocking President Trump’s economic policies. We need to find primary challengers to many of the so-called leaders in Washington.