Tag: Trump

Need to Know 8/1/18

Ontario, Canada is scrapping a basic income program after discovering that it was unsustainable.  The plan, which provided $17,000 to individuals whether they worked or not and half the benefit if they did work, was started in 2017 and meant to be a three year program.  There was shock and anger from the beneficiaries who will soon see those government provided checks dry up.  Universal basic income in the US would cost $3.8 trillion a year, or twice our current annual tax revenues.

Canadian universal basic income trial run fails miserably

Speaking of admitting failure, Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro is joining a proud history of socialist dictators who finally realize their economic model doesn’t work.  However, unlike Gorbachev and Yeltsin, Maduro is vowing to press on.  While blaming outside forces, he called on his comrades to figure out a way to make the economy work.

Venezuela President admits failure, but not defeat

Speaking of economic failure, I wonder how many people think Obama had something to do with the economy getting better?  What actually helped during the second half of Obama’s Presidency was a GOP congress wrangling out of control deficits mixed with quantitative easing from the Fed.  The Fed bought up trillions in US private equities to artificially jumpstart the economy, and lowered interest rates to almost nothing.  Now, in the Trump era of American prosperity, the bill is coming due.  That is the biggest thing that keeps JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon up at night.  He sees it as the biggest economic threat currently.  It’s like Obama put America’s economy on a zero interest credit card, and now Trump has to pay it off.

American economy is great, time to pay off Obama’s credit card

Need to Know 7/31/18

Republican candidate Austin Petersen had his Twitter account suspended for 12 hours after thousands of antifa communist Democrats are triggered by a Stalin gif he posted.  No, this isn’t the Babylon Bee.  Petersen posted the gif in response to one pundit’s ridiculous assertion that Petersen had paid the Russians off to hack Claire McCaskill’s email account.  Petersen is in an uphill battle in the Republican primary to take on McCaskill for her tenuously held Senate seat in Missouri.  He has caused a splash with his AR-15 and 3D gun printer giveaways through the campaign.

Communists triggered by Stalin gif

Is North Korea building new ballistic missiles?  That’s the claim by Washington Post citing unnamed US spies who decided to share classified intelligence with the news agency on the condition of anonymity.  Of course, we’ve seen so much fake news coming from unnamed sources through WaPo and others that there really can’t be too much stock put in this.  It would absolutely benefit Democrats in November to blunt the progress Trump has made with North Korea.  And it seems like a very big risk for people in our spy agencies to tell the Washington Post something so sensitive.  So for now, we’ll stick with the official story.

WaPo publishes classified intel on North Korea, claims anonymous sources

There was no collusion, and even if there was it’s not a crime.  That’s the latest from Trump attorney Rudy Guiliani.  Guiliani made the claim Monday on Fox & Friends.  Depending on the facts and circumstances, he’s correct.  If Trump didn’t commission hackers to break into the DNC’s servers or somehow cause them to break the law, then any other sort of collusion is meaningless.  Even if Trump arranged and met with the Russian attorney in Trump Tower, which he didn’t, it still wouldn’t be a violation of the law.  In fact, compared to hiring a British spy get paid dirt from Russian operatives and then giving that phony info to the FBI to start an investigation, even the worst allegations against Trump are trivial.

Considering Trump has never been the target of a criminal investigation having to do with Russia and considering Hillary Clinton colluded more than even the most wild allegations against Trump, I think it’s time to stop beating this dead horse and move on.

Trump didn’t collude, and even if he had it wasn’t a crime

Need to Know 7/30/18

How much will Democratic Socialism cost?  How about triple what our government costs now.  Over the weekend I mentioned how Ocasio-Cortez wants to raise taxes by $4 trillion to have an eco-friendly liberal economy.  Government guaranteed jobs comes in at another $543 billion.  A new study is saying universal healthcare through Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All plan would cost another $3.2 trillion per year.  That’s makes for an annual budget of $12 trillion per year to cover the Democratic Socialist agenda.  The current budget is $4 trillion and we have annual deficits of about a half a trillion.  Extrapolating that out, we’d not just have to increase taxes 3x.  We’d also have to cover another 1.5 trillion dollar deficit.

How would you like to pay three times the taxes you are paying now and still have our government crushed with debt?

Study: Medicare for all completely unaffordable

President Trump is calling for a government shut down if Democrats continue to obstruct immigration reform.  But you need to remember how this works.  If a Republican Congress puts together a spending bill that Democrats obstruct, then it’s a Republican shutdown.  If a Republican President refuses to sign a bill that doesn’t take care of problems like immigration, then it’s a Republican shut down.  If Democrats can’t get enough votes to pass their agenda because Republicans are obstructing, then it’s a Republican shut down.  If Democrats control both houses and the Presidency, but can’t get their agenda passed, it’s a Republican shut down.  Basically, it’s always the fault of the Republicans.

Trump says fix it or shut it down

Trump’s tariffs have created odd bedfellows.  Democrats, who up until Trump did it supported protective tariffs, are now 100% anti-tariff.  Not really, but whatever it takes to win elections.  Meanwhile, the hated Koch brothers have signaled they will work with Democrats who oppose tariffs and support them.  So you have a Republican President who supports tariffs, Democrats who suddenly oppose them, and Libertarians who are going to put up money to elect Democrats who are anti-libertarian on everything but tariffs.  What a weird world we live in.  I wonder who Democrats hate more, Trump or the Kochs?

Koch brothers to back Democrats over tariff spat

Need to Know 7/28/18 Saturday Edition

Are Americans paying attention?  Yesterday’s economic report showed something the pundits said was impossible.  In fact, in October of 2016 anti-Trump economists said 4% GDP was impossible.  Yesterday the 2nd quarter GDP report came in at 4.1%.  Regardless of what the Left suggests, this sort of economic growth comes from relaxing crushing regulation, cutting taxes, and creating a pro-business environment.  Meanwhile, Democrats continue to run on raising taxes and undoing what Trump has done with the economy.  As the polls tighten, the idea of a blue wave is raising it’s ugly head again.  But Americans need to stop and look at what Trump has accomplished with the economy.  Do we really want to go back?

American prosperity of Trump Era marks turning point in history

Contrast that with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  Ocasio-Cortez was on the Trevor Noah show talking about how to raise taxes on the rich and poor to get another $4 trillion in annual revenue, more than doubling the current size of government.  Ocasio-Cortez suggested the wealthy and businesses weren’t paying enough of their fair share even before the Trump tax cuts.  With some odd math, she seems to be suggesting that we could raise taxes, but not quite as high as they were before Trump, to get more revenue.  As a result, the wealthy would finally be paying their “fair share” of $2 trillion more than they pay already.

But on top of that, Ocasio-Cortez calls for a carbon tax and deep cuts to the military to make up the other $2 trillion.  Of course, the ENTIRE military budget is about $600 billion.  So even if we eliminated the entire military under the Ocasio-Cortez plan, we’d still be short $1.4 trillion dollars.  With the rich paying their “fair share”, that money has to come from somewhere.  She suggests a carbon tax, which would hit every consumer rich or poor.

That’s the Democrat vision.  Kill the economy with taxes on businesses, tax the pants off the poor, and more than double the size of government.  Then government will finally be powerful enough to turn our nation into Ocasio-Cortez and Warren’s version of liberal paradise.  Or we’ll be crushed by debt when they realize you can’t raise $7 trillion in taxes on a failed economy.

Ocasio-Cortez calls for a $4 trillion tax hike to implement the Liberal agenda

Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia is breaking ranks and agreeing to meet with Judge Kavanaugh next week.  Sen. Chuck Schumer has ordered a zero tolerance policy towards Republicans, including 100% obstruction.  But Manchin is one of several Democrat Senators who faces an uphill election battle this year.  As the Democrats become more and more radically pro-abortion and radically pro-tax, blue dog Democrats in red states are facing more difficult challenges.  Manchin is on the DNC November endangered list.  Now he’s stuck between angering his red state by not meeting with Kavanaugh, or angering his Democrat base by meeting with Kavanaugh.

Joe Manchin violates Schumer’s zero tolerance policy

Need to Know 7/27/18

It’s all about the GDP.  Markets are anxiously awaiting this morning’s GDP report, hoping for 4.2% quarterly growth.  If it happens, it’ll be a good indicator that the economy continues to rise at a rapid rate, even after the rapid growth from last year. It would also make the argument against Trump’s tax reform even weaker.

Wall Street awaits GDP report

Speaking of tax reform, Elizabeth Warren bumbled through an interview when she was asked what tax rate is too high.  The poor CNBC journalist tried to help her out.  “Do you feel…that it’s wrong for more than half of somebody’s marginal income to be taken?” “Is 50 percent obviously too high?” Finally, as Warren continued to indicate that 50 percent may actually be too low, John Harwood went for the moon. “…obviously ‘no, 90 percent, that’s ridiculous'”.  Warren finally capitulated.

Warren has the blessing of many Democrats to be the top 2020 DNC Presidential contender.  But they will have to figure out how to deal with her ignorance about what taxes do to families and how the economy works.  When Ocasio-Cortez ignorantly claimed that unemployment was low because people were working two jobs, Warren doubled down on the erroneous claim by saying it was actually because people were working as many as four jobs.  Hopefully she can get some help on the economic front.  When it comes to the economy, Trump is definitely winning.

Warren suggests hypothetical 50% tax rate is too low

On the legal side for Trump, it’s a mixed bag.  While rumors from unnamed sources about the Mueller investigation have turned out to be mostly blowing smoke, there’s a new one out today saying Mueller is going to be looking at Trump’s tweets to see if he obstructed justice.  That would be a stretch.  As Guiliani pointed out, people don’t generally obstruct justice in public for millions to see.  This appears to be grasping for straws.  They would have to prove that Trump was somehow giving instructions to witnesses or intimidating people through Twitter.  That would also mean Mueller would have to take Trump’s 3am Twitter persona more seriously than Peter Strzok’s texts to his mistress.

Even if Trump did try to obstruct justice on Twitter, the Bill Clinton precedent on obstruction would make it very hard to successfully argue for consequences.  Clinton secretly intimidated witnesses, instructed them to lie, matched up stories, then committed perjury himself.  The Senate failed to reach a two thirds majority and ended up acquitting him.

Mueller looking at Trump’s tweets?

Need to Know 7/26/18

There’s a double standard in how the media is treating Democrats versus how they treat Republicans.  I know, you’re in shock.  The latest example is Georgia candidate Stacey Abrams.  In Time Magazine’s “The South is Still Racist” edition, Abrams is pictured as the next rising star of the Democrat party; if only Georgians can overcome their racism and vote for her.  One thing that I found interesting was the coverage of her debt situation.  Abrams is $220,000 in debt.  It’s not mortgage debt.  Abrams owes the IRS about $50,000 and has student loan and credit card debt of about $170,000.  CNN Money excuses this as something everyone has.  In fact, her debt troubles prove she’s a charitable person and helped her develop her economic plans.

Contrast this with Trump’s Supreme Court pick, Brett Kavanaugh.  Financial disclosures revealed that at one point he had over $60,000 in debt, maybe even as high as $200,000.  He has since paid it off.  CNBC’s article on his debt, which some have suggested disqualifies him from the Supreme Court, said “Don’t be like Brett”.  They chided him for how much money he wasted on interest payments.  Of course, Supreme Court justices don’t control state budgets.  Governors do.

MSM: Everyone has debt, just like Democrat Stacey Abrams.  It’s OK!

Also MSM: Don’t rack up debt like Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

The war between Trump and CNN is heating up again.  After CNN aired secret taped conversations between Trump and his attorney, Trump banned a CNN reporter from covering White House events for the day.  Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen is now working with former Clinton attorney Lanny Davis.  Davis provided the secret tapes to CNN and CNN aired them.  The banned reporter tried to ask about the recordings and refused to leave after the press conference was over.  CNN was not banned, but that specific reporter who refused to leave was.

Trump bans CNN reporter after CNN airs secret conversations

Speaking of the Cohen tapes: Clinton lawyer Lanny Davis has promised there are more tapes to come.  But none of them feature Trump.  The Trump legal team made the decision to waive any sort of right to block the release of the tapes because Trump is only in the ones that have already been aired and no crimes were committed by Trump.  Sure, it’s embarrassing to Trump to have tapes out there discussing his private, immoral sex life.  But Trump isn’t going to make the mistake of covering it up, or worse, lying under oath about it.  That was it; it’s all out in the open.  The media may milk it for another week or two, but viewers will be as disappointed as they were when Rachel Maddow found and way over-hyped a page of Trump’s New York income tax return.  The Cohen tapes were a flash in the pan.

Cohen tapes turn out to be a whole lot of nothing for Trump

Newsflash 7/25/18

Trump has been criticized by both sides of the aisle for imposing tariffs on China and threatening tariffs against the EU.  Trump himself has maintained that he doesn’t want tariffs or barriers to trade, but is imposing them because other countries have already imposed tariffs on the US.

Today a trade war was avoided with the EU as they capitulated under threat of tariff and have granted the US major trade concessions.  The EU will import more soybeans from the US and lower tariffs on industrial goods in the deal to avoid US tariffs.  The Dow ended up about 172 points after the announcement.

EU avoids trade war by giving US concessions on tariffs

 

Need to Know 7/25/18

They can dish it out… Days after Sacha Baron Cohen’s “gotcha” show started airing, Democrats are up in arms over a video poking fun at Ocasio-Cortez.  Cohen’s show puts mostly GOP former politicians in a bad light through trickery, fake IDs, and playing on those individuals tendencies.  For example, to trick Sarah Palin into a gotcha moment, Cohen impersonated a disabled vet.

Allie Stuckey of CRTV figured turnabout was fair play.  Stuckey is known for using humor and satire in her videos.  She made a video of a satirical interview with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, using actual footage from Ocasio-Cortez’s disastrous real interviews where she fumbled on questions about Israel and unemployment.  Dems are not happy.  For example, the Independent complained that Stuckey’s video had gone viral and reached 1.5 million viewers before the Facebook police labeled it as satire.  Others have dubbed the satirical video “fake news”.  Cohen’s show debut only got 700,000 views.

Maybe they are jealous?

Democrats upset about being the butt of political satire

Trump is now the target of an incredible political attack from former Clinton attorney Lanny Davis.  Davis has secret tapes that Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen made discussing how they would pay a Playboy model for her story of an affair with Trump.  Cohen is working with US prosecutors in an investigation that has quickly turned into a Kenneth Starr type hunt into Trump’s past sex life.  Lanny Davis is representing Cohen and delivered the tapes of their private privileged conversations to CNN to air publicly.

New York is a one-party consent state, making the recordings legal.  Trump also waived his attorney-client privilege in the matter because paying off someone for a non-disclosure agreement is not illegal.  Cohen is being investigated for fraud, and Trump apparently didn’t want any shadow of that investigation hanging over him.  So far, Trump has not actually been the target of any of the investigations surrounding his campaign, Russian connections, or Cohen’s potential fraud.

Clinton lawyer gives secret Cohen/Trump tapes to CNN

ICE protesters have a race problem.  It turns out the people who showed up to protest ICE in Portland might be advocating for illegal immigrants, but they hate African Americans and citizen Hispanics.  Emails received by The Oregonian detail conversations between officers on site and their supervisors.  The protesters, according to the emails, barraged the African American officers with hateful language and slurs including the N-word.  Another officer, a Hispanic woman, was called a “weak female” and “traitor”.  “I was berated for so long I can’t even remember everything that was told to me.”

ICE protesters use racism and hate speech in Portland

How Obama Saved Trump

Ok, let’s be honest.  Anyone who says Trump committed treason in Helsinki is a moron who doesn’t know how our government works.  Yes, John Brennan – former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, you are a moron who doesn’t know how the constitution works.  It’s so bad, left leaning Politifact had to fact check your claim. Politifact had to fact check a claim by the former CIA director of whether the President of the United States had committed treason.  And you lost.

Maybe that’s why Trump is revoking Brennan’s security clearance.

Brennan wasn’t alone.  Representative Adam Smith, ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, also called Trump’s statements treason.  The soon to be irrelevant New York Daily News led with the cover title “Open Treason”.  A recent poll shows that nearly half the country (guess which half) think Trump committed treason.

But here’s the best part: Trump didn’t commit treason because Obama never treated Russia’s cyber attacks as an act of war.

One of the key essentials to treason, as pointed out by Politifact, is that we be at war with the “enemy” that the traitor provided aid and comfort to.  We aren’t at war with Russia, Trump can’t be a traitor for saying nice things about them.

So then you might ask, if Russia issued a cyber attack against us and tried to influence our elections in 2016, why aren’t we at war with them?  Because when Russia used cyber attacks to steal DNC emails and try to influence our election, President Obama issued a stand down order to cyber security chief and told him to back burner any action against Russia. 

In other words, if Trump committed treason by fumbling with his words and saying he couldn’t understand why Russia would meddle (never mind what he thought he meant to say), then Obama committed treason in 2016 by secretly issuing the stand down against Russia.  Otherwise, Russia is not our enemy and Trump can say whatever he wants.

Maybe Democrats should knock off the bull crap and follow through with what they claim to believe.  Maybe Democrats should introduce a declaration of war on Russia in Congress.  If Russia actually was our enemy, maybe they could start tossing around legitimate treason claims that stick.  But given the cozy history between major Democrats and Russia in the past, they’d probably end up regretting it.

Need to Know 7/24/18

Maryland is joining other states in rejecting single payer universal healthcare systems after discovering the cost.  The program would cost the state $24 billion and would be paid for by an automatic 10% tax on everyone’s income and a flat $2,800 tax on every man woman and child.  For an individual making $50k a year, that would amount to $650 a month, compared to current plans averaging $475 per month.  Maryland Democrats were reportedly shocked to discover that universal healthcare isn’t free.  Wait until they see the price tag for universal income.

Single Payer could cost state $24 billion per year

All is quiet on the northern front, that is the North Korea front, as North Korea dismantles one of their nuclear sites.  North Korea has also not launched missiles or tested nukes in 9 months.  The press has suggested that North Korea wasn’t holding up their end of the bargain or that the deal was off, but that seems to not be the case.  It seems that North Korean denuclearization is proceeding.

North Korea dismantling important launch site

The ACLU gets what it wants, though they won’t admit it.  Political Brief reported 6 days ago that the ACLU had won a hold on deportations so that parents could choose to be separated from their children and deported while their children stayed.  Now the ACLU is complaining that 463 parents were deported without their children.  But this is exactly what they were fighting to achieve a week ago.  The ACLU admits they have no idea how many of those 463 parents signed consent forms requesting to be deported without their children.  So far 897 parents have been reunited with their children, 538 more have been cleared and are in the process of being reunited, and 454 have been deemed to be ineligible for reunification either because they are unrelated human traffickers or violent criminals.

ACLU gets what they want, parents deported without their children