Be on the lookout for a red Chevy and illegal immigrants trying to sneak over our border. If you see them please report to ICE and give location.
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Males are mostly useless in the coming society. Particularly the white variety.
"The Women's Liberation Movement" gave them their freedom and The MeToo Movement" extended it beyond sanity.
One day the pendulum will reverse but relations between the sexes will never be the same because "hell hath no fury as a women scorned."
Perhaps this is good and what was ordained. I have my reservations. Time will tell. (See 1 below.)
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When has The Fed made a soft landing as it shift from prior policies? (See 2 below.)
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Is there an upside for conservatives in 2019?
I will always have reservations about Trump because of his quirkiness but I am downright frightened by the far left swing of the Democrat Party and the progressive liberals/radicals who have taken over the party.
I pray the Democrats nominate the kind of candidate that "deplorables" will reject and Republicans, who embraced some recent House Candidates because the Democrat Party was smart enough to run some former military veterans and seemingly middle road types, will return to the fold when it comes to supporting a president.
I believe and hope these Republicans are un-willing to vote for a far left radical running for president. If they are then our republic's decline will simply accelerate. (See 3 below.)
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A former "vanity editor" explains Trump. (See 4 below.)
And:
What Trump faces in 2019. (See 4a below.)
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You have to root for Root. (See 5 below.)
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have consistently maintained our fight with China goes beyond tariffs. We are in a cold war with China. (See 6 below.)
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Time for some sports humor. Sent to me by a dear friend and fellow memo reader. (See 7 below.)
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Dick
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1) The #MeToo War on Males
The #MeToo Movement originated with good intentions, to show support for the sexually harassed or raped. But as with everything else, the politically correct warriors have taken over. As this year is ending, people should be examining why it has gone too far and how it has hurt many victims instead of helping them.
American Thinker interviewed Dr. Paul Nathanson, a gender relations professor, who has defined the field of hatred, contempt, and prejudice against men in the current culture, and authored four books on the subject with Katherine Young. For the past thirty years he has researched this subject, and now believes, “The MeToo Movement has declared war on men, undermined the rule of law, and have become vigilantes. In the 1960s I considered myself a feminist. As a gay man, I thought feminism was removing gender barriers with a rhetoric all about equality of pay and opportunity. But now it has moved to identity politics. Justice means ‘justice for our group,’ not what is just.”
Dr. Nathanson believes women need to be accountable for their own behavior and thinks it ridiculous that there are outcries for songs such as “Baby It’s Cold Outside” and that there are demands that the Disney song, “Kiss the Girl” to be banned.” William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk in Star Trek, put it succinctly, “the man in the song is just offering an invitation and presenting an argument for not leaving. He is not saying ‘I'm closing the door and you can't leave.’ It's not force, it's verbal persuasion, which works in the act.” Similarly, the Disney song is trying to prompt a shy boy to “kiss the girl,” not rape the girl.
In the 1970s, another song by Helen Reddy, “I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar” woke up an entire generation of feminists who thought of it as an empowering anthem. In other words, women were raised to stand up for themselves. Dr. Nathanson believes that women should think about taking matters into their own hands by getting out of the toxic #MeToo environment even if it means losing prestige, or financial gain. “If someone doesn’t agree with the #MeToo identity politics they are called a traitor or heretic. But this movement is not empowering women to be independent and to stand up for themselves. There is an implication that women cannot rely on themselves to survive in this brutal world that men have created.”
He wants to call out those that are using feminism to inspire hatred. For example, Senator Mazie Hirono from Hawaii thinks that any woman who makes an accusation should be believed and forget due process. Remember her saying,
“But really, guess who is perpetuating all of these kinds of actions? It’s the men in this country… And I just want to say to the men in this country: Just shut up and step up. Do the right thing for a change.”
In other words, the man is found guilty by public decision, and there is no need for a court, jury, judge, or trial.
Dr. Paul noted, “I refer to this as identity harassment. Women need to be held accountable for what is done in their name. Even had Judge Kavanaugh been tried and acquitted in a court of law, his reputation would still have been ruined. Once these charges have been made most people cannot be rehabilitated in the court of public opinion.”
Another example he cites is the kangaroo courts on college campuses called tribunals. “There is no due process for men, and they are not able to stand up for themselves. Rape is wrong and anyone that commits it should be punished through a court process. But what about those who have consensual sex while drunk and without their wits about them? Today, a woman who has second thoughts afterward can say she was too drunk to think clearly and to give her consent. She is considered the victim. Yet, he, who is also drunk, is still responsible and thus committed rape. There is a double standard here because she gets a pass for not thinking clearly, while he does not.”
Nathanson is encouraged that women are coming forward to speak out. Caitlin Flanagan said women who were teenagers in the 1970s "were strong in a way that so many modern girls are weak." Megan McArdle, a columnist for the Washington Post, says, “I think there are also lots of situations where the men do [have the power]. But I think we should teach those women to stand up and seize that power back." Catherine Deneuve challenged some of the basic assumptions and aims of the #MeToo campaign, claiming that the movement represents a "puritanical… wave of purification" driven by a growing "hatred of men and of sexuality".
People have to define what is rape or harassment, and what is seduction or an attempt to pick up someone. Do women want to be considered victims or to be empowered? Is there due process or witch hunts? Dr. Nathanson summarized it, “No one would argue that it is perfectly legitimate to think women should have their ‘date’ in court. The problem arises when they bypass the court and use the court of public opinion. This is not the foundation of American liberty. There should never be a double standard where men are always evil and women are always good. This is very toxic.”
The author writes for American Thinker. She has done book reviews, author interviews, and has written a number of national security, political, and foreign policy articles.
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2) The Fed’s Nightmare Scenario
December 29 marks the twenty-ninth anniversary of the high-water mark in Japanese stocks. On that date in 1989 the Nikkei 225 Index closed at its all-time high of 38,915, but within months fell into “bear market” territory. It has never recovered. It’s astonishing to realize that the Nikkei today is 48% below its historic high.
The main reason for this is because Japan has been fighting the effects of deflation since the early 1990s. To try to reflate the economy, Japan brought short-term interest rates down to zero in 1994, the first major economic power to do so. Since then, its short-term interest rates have been near zero, and sometimes negative. The Bank of Japan has never been able to “normalize” interest rates back to their pre-1989 level.
One lesson to be gleaned from all this is that a bear market is not merely the name given to a sharp, but transitory, decline in stock prices caused by periodic fluctuations in the business cycle. It can also be a persistent background condition of generational duration, caused by human error in monetary policy making.
Another lesson is that the use of short-term interest rates as a tool of monetary policy can lose its effectiveness. The tool becomes useless in bringing about desired outcomes in the real economy.
The third lesson is that the first two lessons are connected. This is the nightmare scenario facing the US Federal Reserve Bank as it, too, tries to “normalize” interest rates, getting them up to a level prior to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2007-08.
Since 2015, the Fed has been gradually raising short-term rates. It has come in for sharp criticism amid signs of weakness in the US economy and the slide in stock prices on Wall Street. The criticism is not just about the interest rate hikes. It is also about the Fed’s move to “normalize” its balance sheet. This latter is typically called “quantitative tightening” (QT), which is the opposite of the “quantitative easing” of 2008-14 when the Fed bought some $4.3 trillion worth of securities, mostly intermediate term Treasury bonds, as a way to inject liquidity into the economy during the GFC and its aftermath.
Today the Fed is letting these bonds run to maturity. On the maturity date, it receives the face value of the bonds in cash from the US Treasury and removes them from its balance sheet. It then extinguishes the money. This means money is going out of existence, at the rate of about $50 billion a month.
Thus, the recent cycle of interest rate hikes is taking place within the context of the Fed draining liquidity from the market. Some analysts say that by the end of 2019, QT will have the effect of adding two percentage points to short-term interest rates, thus increasing the risk of a recession.
At a press conference on December 19, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell summed up the Fed’s policy stance, thus:
“We came to the decision that we would have the balance sheet run-off on automatic pilot and use rate policy as the active tool of monetary policy. I don’t see us changing that.”
One need not go any further than this statement to get a handle on the current situation. A close reading of it reveals four variables are in play. Powell pointed to something called interest rates and something else called the balance sheet. He pointed to something called a monetary tool and to something else not considered a tool. He linked interest rates and a monetary tool, but considered the balance sheet as something else.
This approach brings the nightmare scenario into view. In the face of deceleration in the US economy, the path is open for the Fed to reverse course on its recent rate hikes. But what if the economy does not respond as intended? What if, as in Japan’s experience, the interest rate tool becomes ineffective when it is close to zero? As one joke has it, when your interest rates are zero, the central bank has only two options: either it raises rates, which contracts the economy, or it raises rates, which contracts the economy. Something like this bad joke is going on today in the US.
It is important to ask the right questions in the current debate over monetary policy. Currently, the debate keys on answers having to do with more or less: how high or low should interest rates be set? The more penetrating question would yield an either-or answer: should the primary monetary tool be interest rates? Or should that be scrapped?
A new monetary policy paradigm is needed. A new outlook would flip the emphasis in Chairman Powell’s statement above so that the Fed’s balance sheet becomes the “active tool” of monetary policy, while interest rates are relegated to a secondary concern — or discarded entirely in favor of letting the market decide the level of short-term rates.
This new paradigm would be a rule-based approach to monetary policy. One way to do this would be to use the price of gold as the rule for determining the quantity of dollars demanded by the economy. Accordingly, if the daily price of gold settles above its long-term moving average, that would be considered an “inflationary” signal. The Fed should drain liquidity from the system; it would sell bonds. If the daily price of the gold settles below its long-term moving average, that would be a “deflationary” signal. The Fed should inject liquidity into the system; it would buy bonds. The Fed would take no action if the price of gold roughly approximates its long-term moving average. Regardless of the signals, using short-term interest rates as an “active policy tool” would be discarded.
The 2016 Republican Party Platform renewed the party’s call for the creation of commission “to consider the feasibility of a metallic basis for U.S. currency.” In the past, there have been fitful moves in Washington in this direction. What is needed today is a debate that would examine alternative means for monetary policy-making. It would certainly be an improvement over the current rancor and bitterness as to how the Fed is doing its job on setting interest rates.
James Soriano is a retired Foreign Service Officer.
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3)
The Upside for Conservatives in 2019
There are, I believe, positive developments -- even reasons for cautious good cheer – as 2019 faces conservatives, even as the assault on our constitutional order continues (and I use this phrase advisedly).
The most obvious positive result is to be found in the results of the midterm elections. True, the GOP lost the House, yet on the positive side, Paul Ryan -- who played a key role in slowing down the House investigations into the Russia Hoax and even, as it turns out, the initial dissemination of the Clinton campaign's "dossier" -- is gone. That alone is a positive development, as is the emergence of a more unified Republican caucus.
On the Senate side the news is even better. The GOP majority has been expanded -- an historically unlikely achievement. Traitorous members have been discarded -- McCain, Flake, Corker -- and replaced by either more conservative new senators or new senators who owe their election to Trump's remarkable campaign effort and who will therefore be in his debt. This bodes well for confirmations, both of judges -- including very possibly another seat on the Supreme Court -- but also for perhaps the key cabinet position: the confirmation of a new attorney general to replace the feckless Jeff Sessions.
Already, in that regard, we have good news. Matt Whitaker, the acting AG, has been cleared by an internal ethics review at DoJ to supervise Team Mueller. Of course, emboldened by their success with Sessions, the usual Democrat suspects brought forward the by now standard demands for recusal, citing Whitaker's past criticisms of Mueller. Whitaker, despite anonymous DoJ sources suggesting recusal out of "an abundance of caution," wisely and out of a strong sense of principle refused to recuse himself. The notion that anyone who has paid attention to ongoing events in the public life of the nation and who has both an opinion and the gumption to express that opinion should recuse himself from a position of authority is too bankrupt for serious consideration.
The stage is now set for Whitaker to play an active role in oversight of Team Mueller. If the Democrats have a problem with that, there is a ready solution. They can try their luck with Bill Barr by allowing his confirmation as AG to proceed expeditiously.
Barr is, as former AG Michael Mukasey wrote in "The Phony Attack on William Barr", "probably the best-qualified nominee for U.S. attorney general since Robert Jackson in 1940... Mr. Barr has already served as attorney general under George H.W. Bush, as well as assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel [OLC], the authoritative voice within the Justice Department on issues of law throughout the government."
Official portrait of William Barr as Attorney General
Beyond his obvious qualifications, Barr has demonstrated over the past few years a degree of principle and even courage in his concern for the public weal that recommends him for the position of Attorney General. For a lawyer of his accomplishments, to have remained silent at his stage in both his life and his career would have been easy. Instead, he has spoken out forcefully regarding what he has been able to discern of the direction that Mueller has been leading his team of Clinton partisans. Even more notable in a way, Barr took the unusual step of embodying his views not in an op-ed piece but instead in a tightly reasoned 19-page memo to Rod Rosenstein and Stephen Engel (the Ass't AG currently in charge of OLC).
In this memo Barr takes Mueller to task for what Barr describes as a theory of obstruction of justice (regarding the firing of James Comey) that is "fatally misconceived." Mueller's theory, says Barr, is "premised on a novel and legally insupportable reading of the law." And he goes on to examine Mueller's theory in detail, analyzing both the relevant statutory law as well as the past positions on obstruction that DoJ itself has taken.
Barr's sense of public duty and principle as well as his courage in expressing views that are bound to be unpopular with the Washington establishment that knows him well, speaks volumes about his character. Predictably, the release of this memo has been greeted with howls of outrage and calls for his preemptive recusal from all matters concerning Team Mueller. I'm not much of one for predictions, but in this case, I'll go out on a limb a bit. I predict that Barr will refuse to offer any sort of preemptive pledge of recusal, and I further predict that, when confirmed, he will not recuse himself but will instead examine Team Mueller's legal theories and their prosecutorial practices with a critical eye focused on justice.
Those qualities of principle, sense of public duty, and courage were on display late last year, as noted by the New York Times, when the paper questioned former AGs regarding Trump's continued calls for investigation of Hillary Clinton:
Of 10 former attorneys general contacted Tuesday, only one responded to a question about what they would do in Mr. Sessions’s situation.“There is nothing inherently wrong about a president calling for an investigation,” said William P. Barr, who ran the Justice Department under President George Bush. “Although an investigation shouldn’t be launched just because a president wants it, the ultimate question is whether the matter warrants investigation.”Mr. Barr said he sees more basis for investigating the uranium deal than any supposed collusion between Mr. Trump and Russia. “To the extent it is not pursuing these matters, the department is abdicating its responsibility,” he said.
Regarding the utterly predictable and unprincipled calls for Barr's recusal or rejection as AG, former AG Mukasey stated, with a touch of irony:
The logical implication of opposing Mr. Barr’s appointment or seeking his recusal because he has opined on a matter of substantial public concern is that the only people suitable for public office are those who are ignorant of public issues or indifferent to them. That in itself should silence his critics.
All this, I submit, offers reason for hope.
Mark Wauck is a retired FBI agent who blogs on philosophy, religion, and national security at meaning in history. In his previous life he had over two decades of experience in counterintelligence matters.
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4) The Crisis Of America's Upp Class
One man especially has them going batty.
It had to happen. The United States of America has been the most desirable piece of real estate to inhabit for more than 200 years. It was only a matter of time before outsiders took note of our open borders to the north and the south and decided to enter without proper documentation. Those borders have been sparsely patrolled. And so they entered by the thousands, probably by the millions. Some bringing garbage, as the commentator Tucker Carlson recently observed, others bringing criminal records, none bringing documents attesting to their legal entry. What was to be done?
Well, in 2016 a candidate for the presidency, a builder and developer who had seen enough of our open borders, promised to build a wall across the 1,954 miles of our southern border to keep the illegal aliens out. If he could build behemoth buildings in New York City he could build a wall across the open spaces of our southern border, and in 2016 he was elected president. Donald Trump was elected for many reasons, but one reason he got to the White House was he promised the wall, and a caravan of thousands of unruly Central Americans as recently as a few weeks ago demonstrated why we need that wall.
I suspect one of the reasons that Donald Trump is so easily provoked to anger by the governing class in Washington is that the governing class brings to foozle endeavors that Trump knows are easily accomplished in the world of business. He built Trump Tower in New York. He can build a wall across our southern border. That is the way to shut out the caravans. Let Senator Chuck Schumer and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi wrangle with him all they want. They never built anything.
Now my friend and my colleague in various subterfuges, Frank Buckley, has weighed in with a book explaining why Trump won and also explaining the condition America is in. It is called The Republican Workers Party and it comes with my highest recommendation. Frank was born in Canada and came here in 1989 to teach at George Mason University. He believes that Americans “are the most generous and admirable people,” and remember he is a born Canadian (though now a legal citizen of these United States. I have seen his papers). So when he speaks of a generous and admirable people he knows whereof he speaks.
Yet when he speaks of America as “a country of people hard on the outside and soft on the inside,” there is some irony here. He goes on to say that Americans are also “among the worst governed in the First World.” The problem is with — simply stated — the people who provoke Trump’s most intemperate tweets. He means the governing class, the people—both Republican and Democratic—who oppose his wall, his tax cuts, his deregulation. I guess, if the truth be known, they oppose his economic growth too. They extend beyond the governing class. They are the elites that spread our politicized culture, our political correctness, our reorganized public restrooms. They spread our Kultursmog.
Trump ran against all this in 2016. As he told a reporter back then, “You’re going to have a worker’s party. A party of people that haven’t had a real wage increase in 18 years, that are angry.” He promised to revivify the American Dream, and he is making good on his promise.
Yet he has disturbed the upper classes of our society. He has disturbed the governing class, the elite class, the patrollers of political correctness, the keepers and formulators of the Kultursmog.
One of the most pompous, albeit most lonely, of America’s elites is the never-Trumper. Recently a subcategory of the never-Trumpers found themselves bereft of a rich benefactor to fund their vanity projects. The benefactor was Philip Anschutz whom the never-Trumpers now call a public “murderer.” They are not very subtle. William Simon Jr. and James Piereson have responded that those calling Anschutz a murderer would benefit by reading William F. Buckley Jr.’s book Generosity. Anschutz is a loyal patron to those with whom he agrees, but after spending tens of millions of dollars on a magazine that was going the way of George Soros he thought he would let George do it.
Those who now inveigh against him are mostly editors of what were once thought to be influential political magazines. For fifty years I have been one of these editors, editing a small but influential magazine. Now thanks to their recklessness editors such as I will have to rebuild the repute of our magazines all over again. The never-Trumpers have revealed their claim to influence was mere guff. Their magazines were simply vanity projects.
4a) What President Trump Will Face in the New Year
The critical last layer of Donald Trump’s support in 2016 came from voters uncertain that he belonged in the White House. Now he appears determined to test how much chaos they will absorb before concluding they made the wrong decision.
For all the talk about the solidity of Trump’s base, it’s easy to forget how many voters expressed ambivalence even as they selected him over Hillary Clinton. Fully one-fourth of voters who backed Trump said they did not believe he had the temperament to succeed as president, according to an Election Day exit poll conducted by Edison Research. That number rose to about three in 10 among both the independents and the college-educated whites who backed Trump, according to previously unpublished data provided to me by Edison.
Yet even as they expressed hesitation about the future president, those voters were still willing to take a risk on him, either because they disliked Clinton or wanted change or preferred to disrupt the political system. Some may have thought Trump would moderate his behavior in office.
It’s an understatement to say Trump has dashed those hopes. Instead, he has continued to shatter norms of presidential behavior in every possible direction. Allies and opponents alike usually attribute Trump’s volatility to personal factors: an impulsive and mercurial personality that lashes back at any perceived affront, seemingly without much thought about the long-term implications and with a reluctance to take advice or consider evidence.
Until the midterm elections, it was common for Trump critics to lament that he paid little price for these excesses. But the November results showed, in a quantifiable way, that Trump’s belligerent and erratic behavior does carry a cost. Democrats won 40 seats in the House—and carried the national House popular vote by a larger margin than the GOP did in its 1994 or 2010 landslides—even though unemployment was below 4 percent and two-thirds of voters described the economy as either excellent or good. A performance that weak for the president’s party should not be possible with an economy that strong. But both independents and college-educated white voters, two groups that expressed widespread doubt about Trump’s temperament from the outset, broke solidly for Democrats last month after narrowly tilting toward him in 2016.
Rather than taking that shift as a sign to reconsider his course, Trump has doubled down on disorder since Election Day. He approaches the New Year engulfed in three distinct crises, all of which he ignited with his own actions.
Trump has precipitated a diplomatic crisis by abruptly announcing his intention to withdraw American forces from Syria. That triggered the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis, which reinforced the initial tremor over the sudden reversal with a powerful aftershock.
Trump has precipitated a governing crisis by forcing a partial federal shutdown through his demand for $5 billion in funding for his border wall—an ultimatum that the administration itself only a few days earlier acknowledged could not win 60 votes in the Senate.
And he’s instigated a financial-market crisis through the shutdown, his saber-rattling on trade with China, and his repeated Twitter attacks on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell—with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin providing the aftershocks in this case through his amateurish efforts to calm the markets last weekend.
Trump defenders argue that, on the merits, he can win each of these fights politically (though that case seems very tenuous for the border wall, which has faced majority opposition in virtually every public poll conducted during his presidency). But the larger risk to Trump is that the virtues of each of his positions become indistinguishable amid such swelling levels of confrontation and instability; arguing for any individual policy in this environment may be like trying to identify a single wave in a flood tide.
Each of the current crises may recede in 2019, but the overall trajectory of Trump’s presidency points toward more, not less, disorder. Trump has systematically dismissed advisers such as Mattis who were considered, however imperfectly, the most powerful constraints on his behavior. And Trump will face new provocations that are likely to trigger his most belligerent impulses—especially from an incoming Democratic House majority that’s poised to investigate every aspect of his presidency (including his personal finances). Looming close behind are more potential indictments from Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the release of his final report on Trump, Russia, and the 2016 campaign. In 2019, combustion may be as great a risk to Trump as collusion.
As the stock market has nosedived in December, it’s become common for financial traders to tell business reporters that they now see concrete danger in Trump’s Twitter and press-conference tirades, which they once treated as only “background noise” behind policies that they generally supported.
But since their November losses, strikingly few congressional Republicans have echoed that verdict. Even amid the current maelstrom, very few have publicly broken with Trump over the shutdown or his attacks on the Fed. And while some have criticized his Syria decision and lamented Mattis’s departure, hardly any have acknowledged the broader concerns about Trump’s decision making and stability that both developments provoke.
The market meltdown in particular may be creating the most pressure Trump has yet felt to temper his behavior. But so long as congressional Republicans refuse to publicly demand change, the waves of chaos emanating from the Oval Office are likely to only grow higher. Through their deferential silence, Republicans are betting they can withstand those waves better in 2020 than they did in 2018.
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5)Real news is stranger than fiction
WAYNE ALLYN ROOT COMMENTARY
5)Real news is stranger than fiction
WAYNE ALLYN ROOT COMMENTARY
Thanks to the collusion and conspiracy of the mainstream media, the D.C. Swamp and the Deep State, real news is stranger than fiction nowadays. Let’s start with the funniest line of the week, uttered by outgoing Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Kasich is mulling over a GOP presidential primary run in 2020. He admitted days ago that he “probably” couldn’t beat Donald Trump in a GOP primary today. “Probably” that’s funny. Ten thousand to 15,000 Americans turnout for every Trump rally, waiting long hours in cold, heat, rain, wind and snow. Kasich couldn’t attract a crowd in a phone booth. “Probably”. But Democrats are even funnier. They keep saying Trump should be impeached if he broke the law because “no one is above the law”. Except, of course, every illegal alien in America. Democrats support ending ICE (leaving no one to arrest illegal aliens), they embrace sanctuary cities and now they even want “sanctuary courtrooms.” Just last week, a Democrat judge in Massachusetts helped an illegal alien escape through the back door of the court because ICE was waiting at the front door to arrest and deport this felon. That judge will soon be spending time in a prison cell. Even funnier is the court verdict involving Stormy Daniels. She owes Trump more than $290,000. That likely makes Trump the first man in history to get a refund after having sex with a porn star. That’s pretty special. The same mainstream media that ignore Trump’s victory versus Stormy, try 24/7 to paint Trump as an unpopular president. Except he’s not. Rasmussen has Trump at 49 percent as of Thursday. That was five points higher than Obama at the same point in his presidency. The media tried and tried, lied and lied and they still couldn’t make Obama as popular as Trump. Not even on the week that Michael Cohen got three years in prison. I’ll bet that same lying mainstream media never told you about the testimony of Google’s CEO this week. He admitted the total sum spent by Russia at Google to influence the 2016 election was $4,700. Meanwhile, Google executives donated $1.6 million to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. There was no Russian Collusion. But there was Google Collusion. I recommend Trump order a special counsel to immediately investigate Google interference in U.S. elections. That same lying mainstream media have forgotten to mention great economic news:Trump is winning the trade war with China, just as I predicted from Day One. Trump knows China is in precarious shape. Its economy is on the rocks. Everything it makes is bought by the U.S. consumer. If we stop buying, China’s economy and communist government would collapse. That must scare the D.C. Swamp and the Deep State to death. they are the ones who negotiate such crooked and one-sided trade deals that fleece American workers. They get filthy rich off bad trade deals. That must be why they hate Trump so much. That must be why the Deep State had a top Chinese executive arrested just as Trump sat down for dinner with the president of China at the G20 Summit. Those in the Department of Justice didn’t inform the president. They were trying to destroy Trump’s ability to negotiate a great deal for American workers. Despite all of that, Trump won. China agreed to lower tariffs on U.S. cars from 40 percent to 15 percent and also made a large purchase of 2 million tons of U.S. soybeans. Thank you, President Trump. Did you hear any of that in the news? I didn’t think so.
Contact Wayne Allyn Root at Wayne@ROOTforAmerica.com. Hear or watch the nationally syndicated “WAR Now: The Wayne Allyn Root Show” from 3 to 6 p.m.daily at 790 Talk Now and at 5 p.m. on Newsmax TV.
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6)
The threat of tariffs has caused China’s major stock market to decline more than 25% since its high earlier this year. Chinese officials, clearly worried about the tariffs, are proposing policies they hope will satisfy the U.S. In my judgment, they don’t come close to assuaging U.S. concerns.
7) Don Meredith, Dallas Cowboys Quarterback once said: “Coach Tom Landry is such a perfectionist if he married to Raquel Welch, he would expect her to cook.”
Harry Neale, professional hockey coach: "Last year we couldn't win at home and we were losing on the road. My failure as a coach was that I couldn't think of anyplace else to play.”
Reggie Jackson commenting on Tom Seaver: "Blind people come to the ballpark just to listen to him pitch."
Mickey Lolich, Detroit Tigers pitcher: "All the fat guys watch me and say to their wives, 'See, there's a fat guy doing okay. Bring me another beer.'"
Tommy LaSorda , L A Dodgers manager: "I found out that it's not good to talk about my troubles. Eighty percent of the people who hear them don't care and the other twenty percent are glad I'm having them."
E.J. Holub, Kansas City Chiefs linebacker regarding his 12 knee operations: "My knees look like they lost a knife fight with a midget."
Vic Braden, tennis instructor: "My theory is that if you buy an ice-cream cone and make it hit your mouth, you can learn to play tennis. If you stick it on your forehead, your chances aren't as good.”
Tommy John , N.Y. Yankees, recalling his 1974 arm surgery: "When they operated, I told them to add in a Koufax fastball. They did, but unfortunately it was Mrs Koufax's."
Walt Garrison, Dallas Cowboys fullback when asked if Tom Landry ever smiles: "I don't know. I only played there for nine years."
John Breen, Houston Oilers: "We were tipping off our plays. Whenever we broke from the huddle, three backs were laughing and one was pale as a ghost.”
Bum Phillips, New Orleans Saints, after viewing a lopsided loss to the Atlanta Falcons: "The film looks suspiciously like the game itself."
Paul Hornung, Green Bay Packers running back on why his marriage ceremony was before noon: “Because if it didn’t work out, I didn’t want to blow the whole day.”
Knute Rockne, when asked why Notre Dame had lost a game: "I won't know until my barber tells me on Monday."
George MacIntyre, Vanderbilt football coach surveying the team roster that included 26 freshmen and 25 sophomores: "Our biggest concern this season will be diaper rash."
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6)
Tariffs Should Target Chinese Lawlessness, Not the Trade Deficit
Beijing’s strategy is to steal technology from American and other Western companies
By Martin Feldstein
Made in China 2025 is Beijing’s plan to dominate global markets in a wide range of high-tech products. China’s strategy is to give large government subsidies to state-owned companies and supplement their research with technology stolen from American and other Western companies. This theft includes using the internet to invade the computers of foreign firms and forbidding companies to do business in China unless they share their technology with Chinese firms
The U.S. should not let these outrageous practices continue. That is the real reason why the Trump administration has threatened tariffs of 25% on $200 billion of Chinese exports to the U.S.—nearly half the total—unless Beijing reforms its policies. President Trump has given the Chinese until March 1 to do so before the tariffs take effect. This policy has bipartisan support in Congress, including from Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.
The office of the U.S. trade representative conducted a thorough investigation of Chinese policies this March and filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization. The Chinese objected, and as usual the WTO did nothing. The rule to which China agreed when it joined the WTO in 2001 is clear: A country cannot require foreign firms to transfer technology as a condition of doing business. Beijing says American companies are not forced to transfer technology but do so voluntarily because they want to do business in China. Washington and most American firms see this as extortion.
The Chinese proposals start with an offer to buy large amounts of soybeans and other crops as well as natural gas, thereby reducing the bilateral U.S. trade deficit. It would be a mistake to accept this as a face-saving way to end the tariffs. The purpose of the tariffs is not to reduce the bilateral trade deficit but to counter Chinese technology theft and forced transfer.
China’s response to the threat of U.S. tariffs also includes a promise to reduce its tariff on autos imported into China from 40% to 15%, a policy change that would mainly benefit German companies that make luxury cars in the U.S. In 2017, Mercedes-Benz and BMWmodels accounted for 80% of the cars among the top 10 models exported from the U.S. to China.
China has also said it will stop referring publicly to Made in China 2025 and to the numerical targets of China’s projected share of the global market for particular products. And officials have made vague promises to change laws dealing with the theft of intellectual property and said that China would be willing to discuss U.S. complaints about China’s lax protection. All of this is too little and too nebulous.
We don’t know what Mr. Trump said to President Xi Jingping about China’s behavior when the two had dinner after the Group of 20 meeting in Argentina. We do know what Vice President Mike Pence said in an October speech outlining the administration’s China policy. “Through its Made in China 2025 policy, the Communist Party has set its sights on controlling 90% of the world’s most advanced industries,” he said. “Beijing has directed its bureaucrats and businesses to obtain American technology . . . by any means necessary.”
We also know that the Federal Bureau of Investigation recently told Congress that the Chinese theft of American technology through the internet has become the greatest threat to American national security. That includes industrial technology and military technology being developed by private companies. Such behavior runs contrary to what Mr. Xi promised when he met President Obama in California in 2013.
American consumers and businesses are rightly worried about the effect of the proposed tariffs on prices in the U.S. Tariffs are a tax that will raise the cost of Chinese products to American buyers. Fortunately, the overall effect on the price level would be very small. The direct impact of a 25% tax on $200 billion of imports is only $50 billion. In a $20 trillion economy, that is just 0.25% of total sales, hardly noticeable in the overall cost of living. Moreover, for those products with relatively large price increases, U.S. consumers and producers would shift to other suppliers, making the net impact even smaller.
It is unlikely that China will make enough policy changes in the next three months to satisfy the U.S. and avoid the tariffs. Looking ahead, the U.S. could impose heavier tariffs and other economic penalties in order to force China to play by the rules, ending its attempt to dominate global markets through subsidies and technology theft.
Mr. Feldstein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan, is a professor at Harvard.
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Harry Neale, professional hockey coach: "Last year we couldn't win at home and we were losing on the road. My failure as a coach was that I couldn't think of anyplace else to play.”
Reggie Jackson commenting on Tom Seaver: "Blind people come to the ballpark just to listen to him pitch."
Mickey Lolich, Detroit Tigers pitcher: "All the fat guys watch me and say to their wives, 'See, there's a fat guy doing okay. Bring me another beer.'"
Tommy LaSorda , L A Dodgers manager: "I found out that it's not good to talk about my troubles. Eighty percent of the people who hear them don't care and the other twenty percent are glad I'm having them."
E.J. Holub, Kansas City Chiefs linebacker regarding his 12 knee operations: "My knees look like they lost a knife fight with a midget."
Vic Braden, tennis instructor: "My theory is that if you buy an ice-cream cone and make it hit your mouth, you can learn to play tennis. If you stick it on your forehead, your chances aren't as good.”
Tommy John , N.Y. Yankees, recalling his 1974 arm surgery: "When they operated, I told them to add in a Koufax fastball. They did, but unfortunately it was Mrs Koufax's."
Walt Garrison, Dallas Cowboys fullback when asked if Tom Landry ever smiles: "I don't know. I only played there for nine years."
John Breen, Houston Oilers: "We were tipping off our plays. Whenever we broke from the huddle, three backs were laughing and one was pale as a ghost.”
Bum Phillips, New Orleans Saints, after viewing a lopsided loss to the Atlanta Falcons: "The film looks suspiciously like the game itself."
Paul Hornung, Green Bay Packers running back on why his marriage ceremony was before noon: “Because if it didn’t work out, I didn’t want to blow the whole day.”
Knute Rockne, when asked why Notre Dame had lost a game: "I won't know until my barber tells me on Monday."
George MacIntyre, Vanderbilt football coach surveying the team roster that included 26 freshmen and 25 sophomores: "Our biggest concern this season will be diaper rash."
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