DC Is Home of the Fattest Cats

Five of the nation's richest counties are within the Washington metro area. Surprise!

   
Nothing says Big Government more than Big Money. And if anyone doubted the reality of the ballooning nature of the U.S. government, a look at the latest data on wealth by region would quickly dispel those doubts. The American Community Survey data on the U.S. population was recently released by the Census Bureau, and it found that the top five richest counties in the U.S. are contained within the DC metro area. Moreover, 10 of the nation’s top 20 wealthiest counties also lie within the Washington area.

From the countless thousands of government employees working for an ever-expanding number of federal agencies to the tens of thousands employed by private government contractors to the lobbyists pouring money into the mechanism of government as they seek greater influence of the regulatory state, the DC swamp has fast become the home of the nation’s fattest cats. Money flows to DC because of its increasing power, and power grows in DC because of its increasing money.

CNS News reports that the “five richest counties in the United States when measured by median household income are: Loudoun County ($129,588), Fairfax County, Va. ($117,515), Howard County, Md. ($115,576), Falls Church City, Va. ($114,795), and Arlington County, Va. ($112,138).” The survey covers five years from 2013 to 2017.

The Daily Signal notes, “The study also found that from 2013 to 2017, median household income increased in 16.6 percent of all the counties included in the analysis, while it decreased in 7.1 percent of counties, when compared to estimates from 2008 to 2012.”

Is it any wonder why those living in and around the Beltway are so out of touch with the rest of the country? This also explains the contempt so many of the Washington elites have for middle America. Working for the government should not be the primary means for entering the top 10% of income earners.

SOURCE 

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Car Company shares Roar Back as China Blinks in Trade War, Proposes Enormous Drop in Auto Tariffs

The shares of global car manufacturers began to rise early Wednesday morning amid reports that China will be reducing its auto tariffs. China’s cabinet received a proposal to eliminate the 25-percent surcharge on U.S. cars imported to China, according to Bloomberg.

If the proposal is finalized, China’s tariffs on cars made in the U.S. would drop to 15 percent from the current 40 percent.

Investors seemed to wager on China’s softening stance on auto imports. Toyota’s stocks rose as much as 2 percent in Tokyo on Wednesday, and Hyundai rose as much as 7 percent in Seoul, Bloomberg reported.

This report falls in line with statements from President Donald Trump earlier this month, who announced negotiations with China regarding tariffs.

“China has agreed to reduce and remove tariffs on cars coming into China from the U.S. Currently the tariff is 40%,” Trump said via Twitter last week.

Trump later tweeted that China would begin purchasing agricultural products from the U.S.

“Farmers will be a very BIG and FAST beneficiary of our deal with China. They intend to start purchasing agricultural product immediately,” Trump tweeted.

So far, it seems like Trump’s tough stance on China was effective in making it back down.

Some critics worried that Trump’s trade war with China would needlessly escalate, causing higher prices for consumers.

It’s good that Chinese consumers will purchase more American goods, but the fear is that high tariffs on Chinese goods could push some of the tax burden on American consumers if suppliers are unable to absorb the brunt of the tariffs.

However, Trump seems confident that negotiations are going well.

SOURCE 

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Waves of Bogus Asylum Seekers Overwhelm Immigration System

The Trump administration is working to address this very real crisis 

A tense exchange at the White House on Tuesday between President Donald Trump and the two leading congressional Democrats — recycled incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer — provided additional evidence that a chasm remains when it comes to achieving immigration reform.

While President Trump’s desire to secure the border and prioritize America’s needs when determining who to allow to enter our borders has the strong support of the American people, Democrats have abandoned long-held, sensible immigration positions in favor of a radical open-borders policy that allows violent criminals, and drug and sex traffickers to pour into our nation.

In recent months, Americans witnessed waves of thousands of migrants pushing their way up from Central America to the U.S., demanding to be let in while claiming a right to enter. When attempts were made to stop them, they rioted, tearing down border fences and attacking U.S. border agents. Or Trump was foiled by the courts in his efforts to limit the invasion. He’s filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court after the Ninth Circuit Court blocked his effort to prevent illegals from entering the U.S. and then seeking asylum.

The real immigration crisis is with asylum seekers. As President Trump has kept his promise to strengthen border security, the number of illegal aliens able to sneak into the U.S. has slowed.

However, those seeking entry have not changed their goals, just their tactics. In 2018 alone, the number of migrants demanding asylum at the U.S. border rose a staggering 67% according to Homeland Security, to nearly 93,000 people. Roughly a third arrived at ports of entry without permission, and another 14% were caught jumping the border illegally before filing for asylum.

Migrants know the immigration system is overwhelmed with existing applications for asylum, and they know there is a good chance they will be processed and released into the U.S. while waiting for immigration hearings sometimes years later that most will never come back for, choosing instead to disappear inside the U.S.

Laughably, one group of migrants is now demanding that the Trump administration either let them into the U.S. or pay them $50,000 each to return home. Points for creativity, we suppose, but good luck with that.

It’s difficult to qualify for asylum; only about 20% of applications are approved. To qualify, the migrant must face a “credible fear” of violence or serious discrimination due to race, religion, or political affiliation. Asylum is broken down into two broad categories: “affirmative” (not yet subjected to deportation proceedings) and “defensive” (fighting deportation).

Affirmative asylum seekers are far fewer in number but much likelier to be granted asylum; roughly 70% get approved. Defensive asylum seekers, on the other hand, are rolling the dice, hoping a friendly judge gives them a last-second reprieve; about 75-95% are rejected.

To increase their chances of gaining asylum, the recent migrant wave from Central America took the longest possible route through Mexico to the U.S. Part of this was to avoid the drug cartels that control the region between southern Mexico and the Texas border, but even more relevant, the migrants are fully aware that California is a “sanctuary” state, and immigration judges in San Diego are far more likely to grant asylum than judges in Texas.

While the migrant/open borders proponents argue these waves of migrants truly fear persecution in their home countries, that fallacy is exposed by the fact that, while defensive asylum applications have skyrocketed (the vast majority coming from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico), affirmative asylum applications have stayed roughly constant. It’s also noteworthy that these so-called asylum seekers have received significant financial and logistical support from leftist organizations as they try to force their way into the U.S.

In order to get the situation under control and discourage waves of questionable asylum seekers, the Trump administration has begun “metering” — claiming that detention and processing facilities are overcrowded (they are), so they can’t accept new claims until the backlog of existing claims are processed. Would-be asylum seekers are directed to wait in Mexico until they can be seen.

This has put pressure on Mexico to secure its own southern border so it’s not forced to accommodate and pay for feeding, housing, and securing tens of thousands of migrants.

Last year, the Trump administration received wide condemnation for its wise refusal to sign onto the United Nations’ Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration, which would have given international treaties and laws primacy over U.S. immigration laws. In explaining that refusal UN Ambassador Nikki Haley declared, “No country has done more than the United States, and our generosity will continue. But our decisions on immigration policies must always be made by Americans and Americans alone. We will decide how best to control our borders and who will be allowed to enter our country. The global approach in the New York Declaration is simply not compatible with U.S. sovereignty.”

Despite the faux outrage of world leaders, nearly a dozen countries — including Australia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Israel, and Poland — have followed America’s lead in rejecting the treaty, and pressure is building in formerly pro-migrant countries like Belgium, Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands to spurn it as they face significant difficulties dealing with crime and cultural conflicts after absorbing massive waves of migrants.

As for the showdown with the Democrats, President Trump declared this week that he will get the U.S. border secured one way or another, even if he has to use the U.S. military to build the border wall.

And despite the propensity of Democrats to use immigrant children as political cannon fodder, the American people support Trump’s agenda of securing our borders.

SOURCE 

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More Occasio-Cortez insight



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Don’t Underestimate Dumb Voters’ Appetite For Idiot Leftist Politicians

You should not for a moment fail to appreciate the risk posed to your freedom by left-wing It-Fascists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Beto O’Rourke. There’s an undeniable appeal of this kind of Potemkin Politician for the kind of morons that the Democrats count on at the ballot box. Sure, the Nitwit Naïf is ridiculously ignorant and dumb – she knows nothing and demonstrates no capacity to learn anything. Sure, Tex Kennedy is a meat puppet dancing on the strings held by his masters. But this is the same country where the voters elected Barack Obama, twice.

They can absolutely win power, which means the leftist elite that controls them could win power, and that means disaster for our country. Like an our-country-splitting-apart kind of disaster. So, we need to accurately assess the threat they pose and figure out how to fight it. We need to not fool ourselves into thinking that these two dorks are too goofy for the voters to ever elect, particularly if some Fredocon doofus whose dad used to be a mailman tries to play spoiler.

Remember that a plurality of the voters voted for Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit; the Electoral College is not going to save our freedom forever. We need to get woke to the threat and act accordingly.

Though mocking them is important, because they are clowns and clowns should be mocked, mocking them is not nearly enough. Mockery really only helps reinforce our own morale, assuring ourselves of what we already know – that they are terrible. Our mockery doesn’t affect the dummies. Most liberal voters are just as civics-illiterate as AOC is, so they just shrug when she botches the three branches of government.

It’s different with O’Rourke. It’s not that Beto does not know what the Constitution says. It’s that he is against what it says.

Remember how Donald Trump was mocked? They said he was a joke. They said his policies were ridiculous. They said he’s dumb. He’s so dumb he beat the Smartest Woman In The World and 16 other Republicans of various levels of establishment acceptability.

The point is not to draw some false equivalence between these two media darlings and the president, because they represent very different situations. The point is that voters will not necessarily respond to their favorites being portrayed as buffoons, whether it is true or not. In Trump’s case, it was the mainstream media doing the defining. The president was an outsider. He succeeded by defying the elite and by speaking for people – the militant Normals – who the ruling class had been oppressing for years.

AOC and Beto are something entirely different. They will be protected by the media, and actively covered for. That’s because they are elite catspaws disguised as radical disrupters. Though they attempt to speak the language of outsiders, every single thing they propose is exactly in line with the desires of the elite establishment. Gun control? Check – yeah, the same people hating on the cops are also the same ones demanding that only the cops under the control of the elite have guns. Climate change? Check – gee, how can a carbon tax go wrong? Bizarre theories about race and gender? Check – sure, let’s turn our country into a crucible of social justice witch hunts that would embarrass the town fathers of Salem, assuming they identify as male. I wouldn’t want to misgender anyone who hanged women for imaginary crimes.

Of course, Ocasio-Cortez blabs about “socialism,” but her rantings are straight out of Marxism for Dummies. Nothing she says threatens the rice bowl of the zillionaire donor base Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have cultivated. Free college, free medicine, free this, free that – it’s all just more graft for the Democrats to distribute, and it will all come from the pockets of people like you. Do you think the people who write the checks to the DNC are going to end up paying the bill for this nonsense? Really?

These two are rebels for the establishment, radicals demanding we keep on our present course toward corporatist socialism and progressive hegemony. They disrupt nothing. They are agents of the leftist status quo.

So, how do we fight Chavez Chick and Che-to?

Sure, we keep up the mockery to reinforce our own side, but we need to reach past our own people to the voters who are not yet woke but who are susceptible to reason. We do that by taking these two seriously. To the extent we can get around a liberal media that is an unapologetic arm of the Democrat Party, we get them to talk. We ask them who pays for their stuff. Free college? Okay, I paid for my college. Why should I pay for someone else’s college too? If their college is important enough for me to work to pay for, why isn’t it important enough for them to work and pay for?

“Why should I pay for your constituent’s goodies?” is a powerful message, and one we’ve not used enough lately. The useless Paul Ryan faction thinks it's unfair to bring up arguments like that, but now the House is going to be the site of debates and that needs to be a key issue.

Who pays? You pay!

We’re the ones the elite expects to write a check for all these benefits. We need to pound that home because that idea still has an appeal to moderates. To this end, enlightened self-interest is our friend.

“Why should we pay for other people’s degree in transsexual Marxist mime?”

“Why should we pay more for gas when China and India are increasing their carbon emissions while we are decreasing ours?”

“Why should we pay welfare to the uninvited foreigners who contribute so much to America’s rich tapestry of entitlement and sloth?”

“Why should we pay more for health care? And don’t tell me we won’t because your last bright idea Obamacare cost us plenty.”

We need to take these hacks head-on, both for ourselves and our kids. Don’t think for a moment that the millennial generation is not stupid enough to embrace the agents of their own servitude. The first generation to fail to surpass the success of the previous one is perfectly capable of eagerly voting to make their own lives worse in the name of…whatever it is that motivates these fools. Probably kale and feelings.

Both deserve laughter, but it’s a mistake to laugh them off. It’s a mistake our country might not recover from.

SOURCE 

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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