Here are my observations and opinions of my selected news of the day.
TRUMP’S PERSONAL DIPLOCACY – The establishment crowd of Old Washington was again playing Monday morning quarterback, highly critical of President Trump’s style of diplomacy. Some even intimated that his negotiations are one-on-one with the likes of China’s Xi and North Korea’s Kim; that no national security or trade representatives are involved. Balderdash!
When the president ventured to be the first sitting president to cross over into North Korea, we were led to believe it was arranged on a whim with a tweet to the North Korean leader. Something like, ‘Hey I’m going to stop in Korea tomorrow after leaving the G20, I’d like to say hello at the DMZ.’ And that’s essentially what Trump tweeted.
The day before, even Fox’s John Roberts, who has experience in such things, questioned – what if Kim didn’t show up, the media would be unmerciful.
That’s not the way the Secret Service normally plans the president’s movements. Katie Pavlitch of Townhall says the meeting was in the works for several weeks, but as it turned out, the meeting actually came together in just 20-30 hours, according to Charles Hurt of The Washington Times, who was travelling with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. I understand the Secret Service was more than uncomfortable with Kim’s armed entourage around Trump.
Let’s face it though, Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferers just can’t concede that he’s an outsider who doesn’t always follow usual diplomatic protocol, except when it’s called for, as in his visit with the Queen last month.
‘IT’S THE ECONOMY STUPID’ – James Carville, strategist to Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, is credited with coming up with that line. It is said that those words were on a sign that hung in his campaign headquarters as a constant reminder to stay on point.
Unemployment is at a five-decade low, with unemployment records set for women, blacks and Hispanics. And wages have risen at a better rate for blue collar workers than their supervisors.
Now, while Republican strategists insist that President Trump continue to talk about the impressive improvements in the economy in his first tenure, Democrat strategists are foolishly advising most of the 20 candidates to criticize the economy.
In the second Democrat debate we saw Kamala Harris try her best to surpass Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren as the “economy wizard.”
The Trump economy is “not working for working people” Harris claimed, citing the GOP tax cuts, despite the fact that the cuts helped vastly two-thirds of the American taxpayers and led to historic economic growth across the board.
Harris and Warren each have their own, but similar, talking points on the economy. “For too long the rules have been written in favor of the people who have the most and not in favor of the people who work the most,” says Harris.
Warren insists that only a “thinner and thinner slice at the top” is succeeding. Everyone else is failing. She blames a distrust of a “powerful” and “corrupt” political system, yet her solution is more government.
It was interesting to note that both women dodged questions on the economy.
Harris was asked if Democrats have a responsibility to explain how they will pay for their various “free” policy proposals, Harris dodged the question and returned to her “not working for working people” line.
“When 71 percent of Americans say the economy is doing well, including 60 percent of Democrats,” moderator Savannah Guthrie asked Warren, “what do you say to those who worry (her) kind of significant change could be risky to the economy?” She couldn’t answer that question.
Harris believes she has winning argument against Trump when she talks about meeting people who are working two jobs, and attacks the president for flouting his great economy.
A little research on the part of the Harris campaign would have revealed that since 2009, less than five percent of Americans held multiple jobs, with little change over both the Obama and Trump years.
As we celebrate the Dow’s best June in 81 years and the longest period of economic expansion, Democrats continue to criticize Trump’s frequent reference to the booming stock market, failing to understand that Americans had placed 62.2 percent of their investible assets in stock, according to James Ellis at MagnifyMoney. Another reflection of how out of touch they are with voters.
MEANWHILE, Democrats continue to peddle a false narrative that the economy is in such a terrible condition that only socialism can transform our country into a truly prosperous nirvana.
BETO’S BIG IDEA – “Are neither you nor a family member a current or former member of the U.S. Armed Forces? There might be a tax for that,” writes Tristan Justice of The Federalist.
It’s Beto O’Rourke’s proposed “war tax” to support veterans and spread the burden of military conflict. The tax would vary from $25 for households with an income below $30,000 and rises to $1,000 for those making above $200,000.
The money would be funneled into a new “Veteran’s Health Care Trust Fund,” to be managed by – you guessed it – the government.
LAUGH-OF-THE-DAY – “Would even Rep. Eric Swalwell’s mother be foolhardy enough to vote for him?” So wrote Joseph Epstein in his Wall Street Journal op-ed, in which he reviewed the performances of the Democrat presidential candidates following the debates.
“The people I admire are those who had the good sense, or apathy, or willpower not to watch last week’s Democrat Party presidential debates,” his column lead-in, came in second.
May God bless the United States of America.
