When A Prank Isn’t A Prank

On Tuesday, The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about the dinner hosted by President Trump that included a white supremacist. The more honest media has explained that Nick Fuentes, a known white supremacist was brought to Mar-a-Lago by Kanye West. In an article posted Tuesday, Hot Air explains that Milo Yiannopoulos set up the dinner to troll President Trump. If nothing else, this even illustrates that President Trump trusted someone he considered a friend and got stabbed in the back. However, the American media, being what it is, has used to event to attempt to convince its readers that Republicans are white supremacists. Unfortunately, many Americans don’t know any better.

The Conservative Treehouse notes:

As NBC has now outlined in detail, a trio of dubious characters leveraged President Trump’s previous support for troubled Kanye West as an opportunity for an intentional smear campaign construct by Milo Yiannopoulos, Nick Fuentes and Kanye West himself. [Details Here]  Mr. West, now known as Ye, intended to make trouble by bringing uninvited guests along to carry out the operation.

The media and political opposition gleefully latched on to the successful targeting operation, in an effort to smear Donald Trump.  In typical Alinsky fashion, the goal is to controversialize the operational target.  Senator Mitch McConnell followed up today with his own pile on supported by his Senate leadership.

The article at Hot Air concludes:

Trump’s ego was bruised by Kanye who, I think it’s fair to say, has an equally massive ego. But what really happened here is that Milo set this up knowing it would explode and Trump would be left explaining why he was having dinner with an anti-Semite like Fuentes. And of course Trump can say he didn’t know but that just raises the next question which is why is the former president having dinners with complete strangers? It doesn’t seem very professional or smart and clearly it backfired in this case.

On the other hand I’m honestly not sure how any of this was supposed to help Kanye. It sort of makes me wonder if Milo isn’t doing this for his own personal reasons which have nothing to do with Ye’s plans to run for office. Or maybe he just assumed there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Except, as we found out last night, bad publicity seems to be the only kind Ye and Milo can get out of this whole thing.

Milo and Kanye are not people who care about America. It is a shame that they thought it was okay to create this controversy. Unfortunately the media and the Washington Club will play this up for all it is worth. Trump is a threat to the status quo, and based on the ferocity of the attacks on him, he may be exactly the right person to clean up the mess that is Washington.

Some Helpful Suggestions

Yesterday The City Journal posted an article with the title:

False Prophets

If you really want to help black America, don’t look to Black Lives Matter.

The article notes:

Over the past two weeks, we have seen peaceful protests, but also looting, businesses torched, attacks on police, and the desecration of some of the nation’s most revered memorials. All of this is numbing. Recently, I thought that I had finally turned the corner on my anger over the Floyd killing. (I’m African-American myself.) “Where do we go from here?” I wondered. “How do we get something positive out of this?”

But then the demands shifted. Cries for justice morphed into “Defund the police.” We started hearing calls from white Americans to do something to help ease the difficulties blacks are facing. On the surface, this seems good; the intentions definitely are good. The problem is that, with no context or reference to what is needed in the black community, and often with few black friends or colleagues to consult, many Americans—from those in corporate America to vocal social media consumers—are throwing support and resources behind Black Lives Matter, without considering carefully what the group actually stands for.

Black Lives Matter was started in 2013 to shed light on mistreatment of and brutality against blacks by police, but it has become a radical leftist organization. The “Herstory” section of its website, for example, reads: “Black Lives Matter is an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise.” This proclamation is demonstrably untrue: there is no evidence that anyone—including the police and white supremacists—is killing black people in a targeted campaign, nor are the numbers of such deaths significant compared with the number of blacks killed by other blacks. But beyond BLM’s inflammatory and false rhetoric, there are important reasons to avoid the group.

The article notes that defunding the police would hurt the people that BLM claims to want to help. It would create chaos in already dangerous neighborhoods. This would probably result in businesses and commercial enterprises leaving these neighborhoods.

The article continues:

BLM was started by three black women, but their stated goal—to achieve equality for blacks—masks a different agenda. In the “What We Believe” section of the BLM site, they highlight the work they do to “dismantle cisgender privilege” and their desire to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure”—a structure that many, including myself and Kanye West, believe is key to rebuilding black communities. The mission statement mires a message that should be about black lives in a slew of buzzwords and Marxist psychobabble. Not all the sentiments are bad, but none will create positive change in the black community.

I’ve never known of a nonprofit organization more than two years old and with national name recognition that posts no financial report on its site and no glowing list of “wins.” Most charities get donations by pulling at your heartstrings, highlighting all the lives they have touched. The only thing remotely resembling action on the Black Lives Matter website is a timeline under “Global Actions,” listing activism on behalf of illegal immigrants. Even this consists mostly of petitions and demonstrations.

Many well-intentioned people want to support the black community, especially now. We need to point them in the right direction. The most vulnerable blacks, and the ones most adversely affected by racism, are struggling financially. The best thing that we can do for them is lift them out of poverty. Defunding the police, dismantling the nuclear family, or focusing on immigration will not accomplish that goal.

The two most important things we can do to help the black community are to encourage the formation of nuclear family and encourage better educational opportunities. Part of the problem in the black community is the culture, and the community itself needs to begin to change the culture. Those of us outside the community can help and encourage, but we can’t do it for them.

Who Benefited From The Tax Cuts?

On Friday, Investor’s Business Daily posted an article about the Trump Tax Cuts.

The article reports:

The numbers are now in. According to Congress’ nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), the rich are now paying a higher share of federal taxes after enactment of the Republican tax reform plan than before.

For 2017, before tax reform, the JCT estimates those earning $1 million or more a year paid 19.5% of all federal taxes, counting income taxes, payroll taxes, and excise taxes. But for 2018, after tax reform, the committee estimates that these same millionaire taxpayers will pay 20.4% of all federal taxes.

The biggest relative tax cuts resulting from the tax reform are for those making less than $50,000 a year. Their share of federal taxes fell from 4.4% to 3.8%, a tax cut of 14%.

Indeed, the committee estimates that the federal tax burden went up for all taxpayers now making over $200,000 a year, from 49.8% before tax reform, to 51.3% this year after tax reform. You have to go down to those making between $100,000 and $200,000 a year to find taxpayers paying a lower share of federal taxes, from 29% of the federal tax burden last year to 28.8% this year.

But how could that be? The fundamental reason is the economic growth effects of tax reform.

Higher economic growth means increased wages, jobs, employment and income. As the economy grows, the share of taxes paid, especially by those earning higher incomes who still pay much higher tax rates under our so-called “progressive” tax code, goes up as well.

This is the Democrats’ biggest nightmare. That is the reason they opposed the tax cuts and tried to use the media to turn the American people against the idea of tax cuts. I believe that in the 2018 mid-term elections, we will see the Democrats attempt to campaign on the idea that the tax cuts were ‘tax cuts for the rich,’ but if American voters choose to be informed, they will recognize the lie in that statement.

The article reports more bad news for Democrats campaigning in 2018:

Those same economic effects of the tax reform amount to economic liberation for the poor, working people and the middle class. After 8 years of economic stagnation under the neo-socialist policies of Obamanomics, the rising wages, jobs, employment and income under the long overdue Trump Republican economic recovery are making America great again for those with low and moderate incomes.

Top economists estimate wages for average middle-class families are increasing by $4,000 a year due to tax reform. That’s in addition to direct tax cuts of $2,000 a year for middle class families.

These economic effects are why we now see the lowest unemployment rates among blacks in American history. And despite the lies of the Democrat fake news media, the lowest unemployment rates among Hispanics in history as well.

And these economic effects are why Trump/Republican economics is now resonating among blacks and Hispanics culturally as well, from young black Millennials like Candace Owens to hip-hop stars like Kanye West.

As John F. Kennedy stated, “A rising tide lifts all the boats.'” We have watched the tax cuts (and the ending of some over regulation) do just that. John Kennedy would probably not be welcome in today’s Democrat party. That is a shame. In spite of his questionable activities regarding women, I believe he would have been a reasonable President had he lived.

The Wall Street Journal’s View Of The Wall Street Protesters

Today’s Wall Street Journal posted an article on the ongoing Wall Street protests. There were some interesting points:

In the matter of Occupy Wall Street, the allegedly anticapitalist movement that’s been camped out in lower Manhattan for the past few weeks and has inspired copycat protests from Boston to Los Angeles, we have some sympathy. Really? Well, yeah.

OK, not for the half-naked demonstrators, the ranting anti-Semites, Kanye West or anyone else who has helped make Occupy Wall Street a target for easy ridicule. But to the extent that the mainly young demonstrators have a valid complaint, it’s that they are trying to bust their way into an economy where there is one job for every five job-seekers, and where youth unemployment runs north of 18%. That is a cause for frustration, if not outrage.

That’s editorial speak for “I feel their pain.” I think everyone can identify with the struggles of young people trying to get jobs in a miserable economy, but the protesters need to rethink some of their protest targets. On Wednesday, they marched on J.P. Morgan Chase’s headquarters. J.P. Chase did not take excessive mortgage risk and did not need or receive TARP money. So why are they being protested?

Something else the protesters might consider when complaining that they cannot find jobs:

Now move from words to actions. Want a shovel-ready job? The Administration has spent three years sitting on the Keystone XL pipeline project that promises to create 13,000 union jobs and 118,000 “spin-off” jobs. A State Department environmental review says the project poses no threat to the environment, but the Administration’s eco-friends are screaming lest it go ahead. 

The article concludes:

This probably won’t do much to persuade the Occupiers of Wall Street that their cause would be better served in Washington, D.C., where a sister sit-in this week seems to have fizzled. Then again, most of America’s jobless also won’t recognize their values or interests in the warmed-over anticapitalism being served up in lower Manhattan. Three years into the current Administration, most Americans are getting wise to the source of their economic woes. It’s a couple hundred miles south of Wall Street. 

The easiest way to revive the stalled economy is the develop America’s fossil fuel energy sources. Unfortunately, under this administration, that will not happen.

Enhanced by Zemanta