One of the best-kept secrets in America is that tariffs discourage imports; if we raise tariffs, imports go down. Another best-kept secret is that if imports go down, domestic jobs go up. These two secrets are so well-kept that not even Senate Republicans know. They think that the same amount of imports will keep flowing in, even with tariffs. They think tariffs will not make consumers want to buy American-made goods again.
Even better-kept is the secret that tariffs discourage certain things in the country that makes the goods. When threatened with tariffs if “irregular” immigration wasn’t stopped their side of the border, Mexico suddenly stopped illegal immigration previously said to be unstoppable. This comes as such a revolutionary surprise, perhaps we should consider that threatening tariffs on the sun could stop global warming! Tariffs seem capable of doing things no one imagined, after all.
Another well-kept secret is that America’s government has its need to follow rules. Long, long ago, we all knew that the government has to play by certain rules. But, somewhere during the Obama years, we seem to have forgotten. Impeaching a president doesn’t remove him from office; the House impeaches, but the Senate has to hold a trial before a president can be removed. Clinton was impeached and he stayed in office. Apparently Nancy Pelosi’s voters didn’t know that. So, she explained it to them. With all the well-kept secrets in the country, one has to wonder: Why didn’t “Nervous Nancy” Pelosi just try to impeach Trump, then act surprised that he stayed president? She might have gotten more votes that way. Such lying theatrics wouldn’t have worked ten years ago, but times are changing!
America is dividing between the “hopers” and the “doers”. On the one hand, many voters look for hope through our current times. On the other hand, voters work hard and smart to push the times along.
The Left is lost in a lost hope of impeaching Trump. Their suggestions get more outrageous by the day—it’s hard to keep up with. By the time one pundit offers an interpretation, the next suggestion is already in draft. The problem is with order of strength. Usually we present our strongest arguments first. Usually the first strategies used are the strategies most likely to succeed. If so many things have failed this far into Trump’s term, the likelihood of success isn’t exactly high.
The Right—well, some of the Right—has been working harder than ever. The boring managers who can’t keep an organization from floundering always hate the people who know what they’re doing—like Trump. He just discovered how effective tariffs can be against the Chinese, why not try them against Mexico too!
The abortion debate is heating up to be hotter than it’s ever been. While the Right-leaning states are banning abortion, Left-leaning states are legalizing types of abortion that formerly would never have passed into law. The more controversial this gets the more likely it will rise to the strongest conservative court we have seen in over half a century.
The Left and the “establishment” Right don’t know how to respond. The workers and doers keep working and doing more things faster than the Left can make suggestions on how to stop them.
This past week began rich in fodder for headline minions. Statements like “bomb delivered to home of… [insert prominent Democrat]” and “Kavanaugh recused in three cases…” might convince a non-self-educated idiot that something was wrong. But, anyone who reads past the headlines should know that these stories shouldn’t even make the third page.
At least thirteen bombs were delivered, but none of them went off. That’s not the work of a “mail bomber”, but the work of a “fail bomber” or a “dud mailer”. Kavanaugh was recused from the cases because he has already been a judge with a decision and an opinion in those cases. In other words, Kavanaugh was recused for being over-qualified as a judge and being such an honest person that he won’t rule a second time on a case he already ruled on in a lower court.
Initially, the mailed duds looked like typical Democratic “wolf” crying. After the Ford testimony theater and unreported proof that another Kavanaugh accusation wasn’t true, Americans suspected the mail duds were also a self-inflicted conspiracy for pre-election sympathy. But, as more and more high profile Democratic heavyweights received dud bomb packages, it seemed more like an unexpected ruse that the Democratic media machine was hoping to salvage.
Then, terror struck. For the Democratic media machine, this meant losing valuable headline space before an election. For Jewish families in Pittsburgh, it meant grief and loss.
Then, the caravan halted. Mexico offered refugee lifestyle—housing, employment, education—a few even applied, making the caravan smaller. A child was kidnapped and the caravan stopped moving.
Midweek, the usual headline fodder took a 110° jackknife turn. What happened?—A shot across the bow happened, from whom we just don’t know.
Whatever story lays behind this “fail dud bomber”, this week was a warning to Democrats at the highest levels. Whether this was a self-inflicted media stunt that failed to get whatever victim election favor status was hoped for or if it was a genuine surprise, Democrats no longer have power. Their caravan can’t move on schedule. They aren’t as popular as they once thought. And, most sacred to Democratic elite class party bosses, their home addresses are known to scary people. If that’s not a shot across their bow, nothing is.
Obama supporters have finally decided that overuse of executive orders is a bad thing. Too bad for them that many of Trump’s executive orders merely undo Obama’s executive orders. Trump finally adopted Obama’s policy of Federal intervention where local police fail, though, Obama probably never thought of it happening where it is most needed, such as his own backyard in Chicago.
Trump was elected in response to Obama. Obama’s policies, mostly by mere executive order, not only couldn’t last, they backfired. Anti-Trumpists still have not learned the important lesson of life: good or bad, right or left, whatever you build needs to last. If Trump harms America, Obama supporters have no one to thank but their own president who rolled out the red carpet for Trump as much as Bush rolled out the red carpet for Obama. The cycle only seems to continue with very few people getting wise to what’s going on.
All that “Russia interfered” jazz morphed into Democrats calling for investigations of voter fraud, which is likely to indite both parties. But, we can’t know how much voter fraud there truly was since asking for photo ID at an election isn’t legal, thanks to the same Democrats who are asking for an investigation. That makes no sense, except in Washington.
The elephant in the living room is the golden brick highway paved to today’s crisis. A Hawaiian Congresswoman told CNN that Obama was funding ISIS in Syria? Trump’s “ban” only affects people coming from seven countries that Obama’s DHS and US Congress decided sponsor terrorism—Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Yemen—these countries were not chosen by Trump, but under Obama. Trump’s order only names Syria, based on what Syrian refugees have done in other places they have gone to.
A federal judge made a very small exception to Trump’s sweeping executive oder: people with pre-approved papers who arrived on airplanes won’t be sent back immediately. This action affects very few people and confronts none of Trump’s campaign principles. Affected green card holders will be allowed to leave the US and return, but need to visit a US consular first. Protests against Trump’s orders are mounting. Some saw the judge’s order as victory against Trump’s goals.
A Sheriff in Travis County, Texas has refused to cooperate with the State’s requests, which are mainly aimed at not releasing people who entered the country illegally and are sought by US Immigration after they are arrested and in custody for a local crime. Travis County receives just shy of $2M from the State in law-enforcement grants, but the Sheriff says that she has neither the priority nor the authority to comply with the requests from Federal and State governments to hand over sought-after illegals already in her custody.
As fast as Trump wants to build his wall, he will have difficulty breaking Russia’s record in Berlin. Mexico’s president canceled his meeting with Trump once Trump Tweeted that paying for the wall was a requirement. President Neito told his people that “Mexico must protect its interests”, which, apparently, includes being able to cross into the US at non-border crossings. Building the wall would not change the number of entry points and, if anything, could create more entry points since patrolling the border would be easier. Canceling the meeting won’t change anything. A presidential candidate can skip out on one of an excessive number of televised presidential debates and still win the nomination and the election, but a sitting president can’t skip out on a meeting when his presence has been requested by a nation whom his own citizens are persistently entering illegally when that nation is about to rip up a trade agreement. The meeting with Trump was not going to negotiate whether Mexico will pay for the wall to contain its own people, but how Mexico will pay for the wall to contain its own people. By not attending, Mexico’s president is leaving that decision to President Donald J. Trump—which might have been exactly what Trump wanted in the first place. Now, Mexican Billionaire Carlos Slim wants to step in.
Mexico is currently our 3rd largest goods trading partner with $531 billion in total (two way) goods trade during 2015. Goods exports totaled $236 billion; goods imports totaled $295 billion. The U.S. goods trade deficit with Mexico was $58 billion in 2015.
The story compares to the rich, old uncle who told his nephew, “No, you’re gonna pay for the repairs to my barn you burned down or you might as well not even ask me to buy you another car.” The kid ran home to his daddy who said, “No, you are gonna’ talk with your uncle about his barn. I’m calling my brother and you’d better be here when I do.” By asking to step in to negotiate between the US and Mexico, Billionaire Carlos Slim has proven in Mexico what Trump proved in the US—people with actual business experience know more about getting things done than politicians. Maybe he wants to run for president in Mexico. Or, maybe he doesn’t want his own business empire to be at the mercy of a much younger president who can’t hold two candles to the adults in the room.
It seems that America isn’t the only country dealing with brats who complain all the time, repeat perfectly what they hear on TV, but can’t put a roof over their own heads. There’s nothing wrong with not having money, as long as you don’t lecture the people who do.
President-Elect Trump criticized the intelligence community for having fake reports and allowing those reports to leak. He conducted his own “leak” fishing expedition and plugged the leak—or “caught, fired, and fried” the leak. If he can find his leaks with no power of the pen, why can’t the “intelligence” people find their leaks? That must be Trump’s question, anyway. Of course he Tweeted against the agencies.
Is it wrong for a president-elect to criticize people he can soon fire? There is no way that this president-elect has criticized his soon-to-be subordinates as much as the soon-to-be ex-president will continue to criticize without end. Obama plans to stay in Washington, and it isn’t because he likes gazing at the Eisenhower Building.
When Brennan lectures, “It’s more than about Mr. Trump; it’s about the United States of America,” he’s talking about his future boss. That’s not right or wrong; that’s just not smart. Even Comey was smart enough not to go up against Obama. Maybe Brennan expects to be fired anyway.
A lot of people aren’t thinking about what will happen when the man they continue to criticize becomes president. They weren’t thinking about all the deals they made that weren’t going to last. Whether the trade deals were good or bad, Americans were never going to tolerate China and Mexico taking American jobs forever. Clinton’s and Bush’s and Obama’s trade deals weren’t going to last. But, people didn’t see that either. They didn’t see a lot of stuff that was coming. That’s somewhat of a unifying quality among the anti-Trumpists. It still is, apparently.
Ford’s move to do exactly what Trump anticipated—while claiming they made the move independently of Trump—raises deeper questions. “Only” investing $700M in Michigan rather than $1.6B in Mexico should have made sense all along—unless the real reason Ford planned to move to Mexico was about confidence in the future American economy.
American confidence seems to be up. Construction companies think so, at least.
Not much else has dominated US political-economic news, except a Texan visit from Taiwan’s president. With all the good things happening, there just isn’t much news to report.
