USMCA: Agreement reached on NAFTA trade deal replacement

Great news!  Once again Trump delivers

The US, Mexico and Canada have finalised a trade deal that will replace the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta). Representatives from the three countries signed the pact in Mexico.

They met hours after Democrats in US Congress said they would support the deal after the White House agreed to strengthen the labour and environmental rules.

The three countries had concluded their talks more than a year ago. But the deal needs approval by legislatures in the three countries before it can move forward.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared the revised pact "infinitely better" than the deal the three countries announced last year.

US President Donald Trump, who had accused the Democrats of holding up the deal, also declared victory. The US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) will be "the best and most important trade deal ever made by the USA. Good for everybody - Farmers, Manufacturers, Energy, Unions - tremendous support," he tweeted.

Talks started in 2017 and the three countries agreed to terms last year. Among the most eye-catching changes were new rules that require a higher share of North American-made parts for a vehicle to qualify for tariff-free treatment.

Democrats, who control the House of Representatives, were also pushing for changes to strengthen enforcement of labour and environmental rules, and provide more flexibility governing drug pricing.

On Tuesday, Democrats said they had reached an agreement with the White House on new provisions and were planning to support the deal in a vote. "There is no question, of course, that this trade agreement is much better than Nafta but... it is infinitely better than what was initially proposed by the administration," Ms Pelosi said.

Democrats' decision to advance the deal, known as USMCA, gives Mr Trump a victory on one of his signature issues, trade. But it also serves to undercut criticism by Republicans that the Democrats are too focused on impeachment to govern.

The US business community said news that the deal would move forward was a relief and urged Congress to bring it to a vote quickly. Canada and Mexico are two of the US's biggest trade partners.

"Farmers have been struggling in the face of bad weather and unpredictable trade policy," said Angela Hofmann, co-executive director of the lobby group, Farmers for Free Trade. "Passing USMCA will guarantee that our farmers' closest and most important markets, will remain free from tariffs and red tape."

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Trump DEMOLISHES Impeachment Narrative on Ukraine

Shortly after Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) announced the Democrats' two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, the president responded with a blockbuster tweet demolishing the central claim in the impeachment narrative.

Nadler explained that Democrats were impeaching Trump for "abuse of power." He accused the president of having "solicited and pressured Ukraine to interfere in our 2020 presidential election, thus damaging our national security, undermining the integrity of the next election, and violating his oath to the American people."

Trump responded to this directly.

"Nadler just said that I 'pressured Ukraine to interfere in our 2020 Election.' Ridiculous, and he know that it is not true. Both the President & Foreign Minister of Ukraine said, many times, that there 'WAS NO PRESSURE.' Nadler and the Dems know this, but refuse to acknowledge!"

Indeed, shortly after Democrats launched the impeachment inquiry into President Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, "nobody pushed me" on the July 25 call. Zelensky later insisted that there was "no quid pro quo" regarding an alleged exchange of U.S. cash for politically-motivated investigations into Joe Biden's son Hunter.

In September, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said, "I think there was no pressure" on Zelensky in the call.

While Trump did hold up military funding for Ukraine after Congress had approved it, he appears to have done so because he was suspicious of foreign aid and because he did not yet trust the incoming Ukrainian president. Trump released the funding after many meetings between Trump officials and Zelensky's administration — and without any public announcement into investigations of Hunter Biden or Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election.

Furthermore, it is arguably in the United States' interest to ask Ukraine to investigate these matters — the son of an American vice president secured a position on the board of a notoriously corrupt energy company while his father was the Obama administration point person on Ukraine. Furthermore, Joe Biden later pressured Ukraine to fire a prosecutor who happened to have been investigating the company his son worked at — and he threatened to revoke funding for Ukraine if the prosecutor was not fired!

The Democrats are impeaching Trump for applying pressure when there was no pressure. Nadler even tipped his hat to the Trump-Russia collusion narrative while announcing the articles of impeachment! Make no mistake: this impeachment is an effort to kneecap Trump for 2020.

SOURCE 

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In a Blow to Political Correctness, Trump Praises Salvation Army

America isn’t the only thing making a comeback under President Donald Trump—so is Christmas! The candidate who vowed, “We’re gonna be saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again,” delivered on that promise again in a big way Thursday night. Thirty feet of big, to be exact. In front of the giant spruce, the president made it very clear that this event wasn’t about illuminating the tree—but shining a light on the real reason for the season.

In a speech that no one would mistake for former President Barack Obama’s, the president talked about the wise men coming to worship Jesus:

"Christians give thanks that the Son of God came into the world to save humanity. Jesus Christ inspires us to love one another with hearts full of generosity and grace … As one grateful nation, we praise the joy of family, the blessings of freedom, and the miracle of Christmas"

His words were a breathtaking departure from Christmases past, which were full of nothing but the pageant of political correctness.

To millions of Americans, Trump hasn’t just tapped into the frustration they feel about Christmas, but the mockery of the values they hold dear. And he took another moment to prove it, intentionally recognizing the Salvation Army for its important work—despite the left’s latest attacks over its Christian roots.

"Joining us today are David and Sharron Hudson of the Salvation Army. Each year, through their Angel Tree program, the Salvation Army brings new gifts to more than 600,000 children. David and Sharron are an inspiration to us all. And, David and Sharron, thank you very much for being with us. Thank you"

After Chick-fil-A walked away from the group and the Cowboys almost lost their halftime show over the Red Kettle campaign, it matters that this president made a point of standing alongside the nonprofit. The message was subtle but clear: He isn’t caving to the cultural bullies, and Americans shouldn’t either.

For the Salvation Army, the support couldn’t come at a better time. As Rich Lowry points out, the red kettles that used to be a sign of charity and goodwill are suddenly a symbol of liberal controversy:

“It takes a perverse worldview not to have fond feelings about this tradition, which is spectacularly successful on its own terms, raising almost $150 million a year.” But then, the left has never let “sentimentality interfere with their dictates.”

If you think that volunteering for an organization that is raising funds to provide food and housing, among many other services, for the needy is an inherently praiseworthy act, you haven’t been following the woke left-wing activists cutting a swath through American culture. Any institution, no matter how storied or how generous, is subject to a punitive campaign of social ostracism that is often highly effective. In today’s environment, what seems preposterous one moment is inevitable the next, and after one target is ground into submission, another is quickly found.

Fortunately, Trump doesn’t believe in surrender. And he’ll go to the mat to guarantee that Christian organizations like this one can continue serving Americans—for the same reason he’ll keep fighting the war on Christmas: because no one should ever have to compromise their faith in a country like ours.

SOURCE 

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AG Bill Barr Just Issued a Translation of the DOJ IG Report & It’s a Red-Hot Rebuke of ‘Intrusive’ Spying on Trump

The Department of Justice Inspector General’s (IG) report into the FBI lying to the FISA Court to get warrants to spy on the Trump campaign is 433 pages. It took AG Bill Barr one paragraph to translate what all of it means in the real world. Oh, and don’t pick it up because you might burn yourself.

"The Inspector General’s report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken. It is also clear that, from its inception, the evidence produced by the investigation was consistently exculpatory. Nevertheless, the investigation and surveillance was pushed forward for the duration of the campaign and deep into President Trump’s administration. In the rush to obtain and maintain FISA surveillance of Trump campaign associates, FBI officials misled the FISA court, omitted critical exculpatory facts from their filings, and suppressed or ignored information negating the reliability of their principal source. …[T]he malfeasance and misfeasance detailed in the Inspector General’s report reflects a clear abuse of the FISA process"

Because the IG has no right to subpoena and can’t lock anyone up, he can only refer people for prosecution. Currently, most of the people who conducted the abuse have been fired and were out of the purview of the IG.

The IG report, however, found that officials lied and omitted helpful information to Trump campaign officials who were being spied on, but couldn’t determine if the malfeasance was politically motivated.

U.S. Attorney John Durham is looking into why the Trump spying case was hatched by people clearly pulling for Hillary Clinton to win the election.

Durham also issued an extraordinary statement today, saying:

"Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.
The Durham investigation may be the final word on the Obama administration spying scandal into the campaign of a political rival"

The Durham investigation and IG report releases are the chief reasons why the Democrats have rushed the impeachment hearings to get ahead of the damning news of Democrat political chicanery and potential lawbreaking in the 2016 election.

SOURCE 

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IN BRIEF

THE GREAT REVEAL: House Democrats announced two articles of impeachment Tuesday against President Donald Trump — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress (Associated Press)

"WE'RE GOING TO GO WITH IT": Democrats, White House reach agreement on revised NAFTA trade pact (Los Angeles Times)

"WE DO NOT AGREE": U.S. Attorney John Durham objects to IG findings on Russia probe origins in stunning statement (Fox News)

GEE, WHAT COULD DURHAM BE OBJECTING ABOUT? FBI Director Christopher Wray announces "40 corrective steps" in response to failures detailed in Horowitz report (National Review)

MEASURE TOTALS $738 BILLION: Lawmakers reach deal on massive defense bill, eye Russia, Turkey, China (Reuters)

A $12 BILLION DISPUTE: High Court justices to hear ObamaCare case with billions at stake (The Hill)

DECLINED WITHOUT COMMENT: Supreme Court leaves in place Kentucky abortion law mandating ultrasounds (NBC News)

TRENDING BLUE: Virginians prepare for a Second Amendment battle (National Review)

"CATCH AND RELEASE IS OVER": Border apprehensions drop for sixth month in a row (The Daily Signal)

"SOCIAL CREDIT SCORE": China set to roll out Orwellian mass-surveillance tool (The Washington Times)

POLICY: How to lower student-loan defaults: Simplify enrollment in income-driven repayment plans (Manhattan Institute)

POLICY: The strategic case for supporting Ukraine (The American Interest)

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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  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here 

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A tide of contempt is corroding our politics

Jeff Jacoby is correct below but fails to note where the great blasts of contempt are coming from:  The Left.  Conservatives just look on in amazement. Only Trump blasts back

What feels different today is how contemptuous political enmity has grown. Candidates, activists, and pundits are no longer content to ascribe bad motives to their opponents or predict bad outcomes if they prevail. Increasingly they see those on the other side of the political divide not as fellow Americans with whom they differ, but as "deplorables" or "losers" whom they despise.

For most of American history, it was suicidal for candidates to sneer derisively at half the electorate. In 1884, a surrogate of James G. Blaine, the Republican presidential nominee, publicly libeled Democrats as the party of "rum, Romanism, and rebellion" — i.e., alcoholics, Catholics, and disloyal ex-Confederates. Newspapers trumpeted the insult in headlines the following day, enraging Irish Catholic voters and fatally wounding Blaine's campaign. Rough-and-tumble politics was one thing, but to openly scorn a huge swath of the electorate was intolerable.

Those old norms are dead. Gallup reports that now even the most basic institutions of American life — religious organizations, the economic system, higher education, the scientific establishment — are seen by partisans "not as beneficial and necessary, but as part of an effort by the other side to gain advantage and to perpetuate its power."

It is commonplace to decry the polarization of American society. But what makes it so dysfunctional isn't that we have sharp disagreements. It's the caustic contempt with which those disagreements are expressed —the determination not just to win political arguments, but to savor the tears of those who lose them.

More than ever, voters need to say no to candidates who traffic in defamation and disdain. But we have pulled down the guardrails that used to keep American politics within broad bounds of decency and respect, and no one seems inclined to put them back up.

SOURCE 

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Alan Dershowitz to Mark Levin: Democrats Are Using Soviet Tactics to Take Down Donald Trump

On the latest episode of "Life, Liberty & Levin" on Fox News Channel, law professor Alan Dershowitz completely destroyed the Democrats' impeachment case against President Donald Trump. "They're searching for a crime... There is no case for bribery," Dershowitz told Levin.

Host Mark Levin asked Dershowitz about the meaning of "bribery." It has, he said, specific meaning. "It doesn't mean everything. It just doesn't necessarily mean this. What does it mean?"

Well, Dershowitz explained, "There are four criteria... We know it when we see it." For example, "when you pay a government official corruptly to perform an illegal act or an act that is motivated by money. But it can't operate when you're the president of the United States and you're conditioning or withholding money in order to make sure that a country isn't corrupt, and you're asking them to investigate. That just doesn't fit any definition of bribery — common law definition of bribery, statutory definition of bribery. However you define the constitutional word bribery, it just doesn't fit."

So, what are Democrats doing, then? "What they're trying to do is what the KGB under Lavrentiy Beria said to Stalin the dictator -- I'm not comparing our country to the Soviet Union, I just want to make sure it never becomes anything like that. Beria said to Stalin: 'Show me the man and I'll find you the crime.' And that's what some of the Democrats are doing. They have Trump in their sights. They want to figure out ways of impeaching him, and they're searching for a crime."

"First they came up with abuse of power," Dershowitz went on to say, "[which] is not a crime, it's not in the Constitution. So now they're saying bribery but they're making it up. There's no case for bribery, based on... even if all the allegations against the president were to be proved, which they haven't been, but even if they were to be proved, it would not constitute the impeachable offense of bribery."

Dershowitz also wondered why Democrats were allowed to get three expert-witnesses, and Republicans only one. Prof. Jonathan Turley did a fantastic job, he said, but this discrepancy alone is reason for concern. "You know, Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist Paper number 65, the greatest danger would be if impeachment turned on the number of people each party had.* If impeachment turns on the fact that the Democrats now have a majority in the House but not in the Senate, that would be a complete abuse of what the framers had in mind."

It goes without saying that Democrats couldn't care less what the framers had in mind. They hate the framers. They despise them. They were "slaveholders!" "Racists!" "White men!" The only reason their so-called expert witnesses referred to the framers every now and then during their testimony was to give their coup against President Trump some legal backing.

"Alexander Hamilton is misquoted all the time. He used the word 'political,' but he didn't say the process should be political; he said the crimes -- treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors -- are political in nature. But the process should be non-partisan. Nobody should be impeached and removed unless there is an overwhelming bipartisan consensus," Dershowitz explained. "I'm not making that up. I'm quoting Congressman Nadler when Bill Clinton was being impeached."

Dershowitz is right. Democrats are making it up, and they are copying Soviet tactics to get rid of President Trump. It's truly a shocking sight to behold -- and that's precisely why it's so important for all conservatives to stand by the president against this Democrat coup.

*Federalist Paper No. 65 can be read here. The literal quote is: "... there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt."

SOURCE 

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Lawmakers Map Out Conservative Solutions to End Poverty

Instilling a sense of expectancy, personal capability, and American exceptionalism are keys to lifting individuals out of poverty, two conservative lawmakers said Thursday at a policy forum at The Heritage Foundation’s headquarters on Capitol Hill.

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., both spoke at Heritage’s 2019 Antipoverty Forum, an annual gathering of researchers, educators, and government staffers and officials organized by the leading think tank.

“The thing that really took me from being a kid, failing out of school, being a son in a single-parent household, being a person mired in poverty, really becoming more, was this notion that it was possible,” Scott said in a keynote address to attendees.

“The one thing my mother never lost was this sense of hope and wonder that this world, this nation, could afford her child opportunity,” he said. “And she was right.”

All the agencies and programs that government tries to offer can’t replace instilling the American ideal in those who have been caught in a cycle of poverty, the South Carolina Republican said.

“If we don’t find a way to embed within all the things that we do this notion of wonder about who we are, why America is exceptional, if we don’t restore as a part of the basic fabric of our organizations, our legislation, of our efforts, that all things are truly possible for all people no matter where they are … we won’t get there,” Scott said.

He said that school choice and apprenticeship programs are part of the answer to help students rise above their circumstances to pursue an education and a productive place in society.

“If we remember the importance of who the child will be and help that child learn in the natural direction that they are predisposed to … you find yourself having success that is unrivaled,” Scott said.

School choice programs are successful not just because of the enriched education they offer, but how they instill virtues in students, he said:

If we’re going to have successful school choice [programs], it’s because those programs understand equipping the child not just academically, but keeping the embers of hope and dreams. I’ve worked on legislation and my team is working on legislation that helps us reform our safety-net programs so as to not have a clip on our program, so that we can encourage work.

We encourage prosperity, but we encourage the development of a work ethic that allows you to get a raise and keep that raise without having all your benefits fall off a cliff.

Johnson, who chairs the Republican Study Committee, the largest organization in the House’s GOP conference, said one practical way his colleagues are working on to bring families and  communities out of poverty is by incentivizing marriage rather than penalizing it.

Federal welfare policy disincentivizes marriage, according to a 2014 paper from Robert Rector, senior research fellow in domestic policy at The Heritage Foundation.

If a single mother who makes $20,000 a year marries a man who makes the same amount, Rector wrote, the couple will lose about $12,000 a year in welfare benefits.

“We believe our job is just to create the right policy framework, to unleash communities, to take the lead on this, to empower people,” Johnson said in formal remarks. “Fixing policies that discourage marriage ought to be at the top of that list. And I can assure you, it’s one of the top priorities of all the members of the Republican Study Committee.”

He said the group’s American Worker Task Force, which aims to implement policies that encourage and unleash workers, is set to release a report in March that explores reforms for higher education, the job market, tax and regulatory policies, and welfare programs.

“I think we believe that our public policy in this country [is] to always emphasize not only education but the virtue of hard work, because that’s a pathway out of poverty,” Johnson said. “And we believe public assistance ought to be reserved for those that are truly in need. And when we squander those resources, we hurt the people.”

SOURCE 

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Ted Cruz Is the Democrats' Bogeyman Again

by Stephen Kruiser

If this past weekend is any indication, Cruz seems to have regained his irritation mojo.

He pulled off a double-whammy with an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press when he steamrolled host Chuck Todd and then triggered CNBC’s John Harwood.

I really enjoy how Chuck Todd looks like he is about to burst a vein and Cruz is smiling and calm, waiting for the idiot to wander into his lair. The MSM is so desperate to cling to their Trump/Russia fantasies that they reach hysterical schoolgirl levels of ninny-ess at times.

The notion that Ted Cruz has now morphed into a Putin puppet is laughable, but he is getting under all the right people’s skin again. Here is the title to Jennifer Rubin’s latest crazy cat lady turn at the Washington Post:

It has come to this: Ted Cruz is Putin’s stooge

I’ll only share loony Jen’s conclusion here: "The words of a U.S. president and a U.S. senator matter, and one of the saddest things is that both are willing to enable an enemy of the United States. In comparison to this crowd, Obama was Winston Churchill"

Sure, Rubin’s op-eds are nothing more than cries for help now, and she’s easy to set off, but it’s just more fun when Cruz is the catalyst.

Rubin takes Cruz to task for not standing up to the president, which just means that he won’t fall in line with the MSM outrage talking points. Like Trump, Cruz exhibits no timidity whatsoever about hammering and dismantling the leftist narrative. With the president taking most of the heat for the past few years, Cruz is tanned, rested, and ready to resume his pain in the you-know-what status.

SOURCE 

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IN BRIEF

PREMISE: House Judiciary Committee releases report defining impeachable offenses before today's hearing (The Daily Caller)

VIOLATING THE CONSTITUTION? Trump heads to court in fight over emoluments clauses (The Hill)

AN OVERLY OPTIMISTIC PICTURE: U.S. officials misled public about progress in Afghanistan: "The American people have constantly been lied to" (National Review)

NARRATIVE BUSTER: Border Patrol agent debunks viral video showing illegal immigrant scaling Trump wall (The Daily Wire)

UNFORTUNATELY, THE CASE IS STILL PROCEEDING TO TRIAL: A biased California judge dropped six of the 15 bogus charges filed against David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt related to their undercover investigation of Planned Parenthood (LifeNews,com)

SUBJECT TO CONFIRMATION: Bankrupt PG&E reaches $13.5 billion settlement with California wildfire victims (Reuters)

FACING UP TO FIVE YEARS IN JAIL: First person charged under Florida "red flag" law found guilty (Fox News)

POLICY: Study confirms the healthcare dangers of a public option (Washington Examiner)

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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  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here 

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How can top Democrats run the economy with no business skill?

The market news today must be especially worrisome for the field of Democratic presidential candidates. The latest jobs report turned out much better than expected, with 266,000 additional payrolls created, propelling the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its strongest trading session in two months and marking the “best numbers of our lives.”

That, of course, will not stop the rhetoric from the candidates. For all of the talk of the Green New Deal, most of the focus of Democrats is not on the economic health of the middle class. To a certain extent, however, you cannot even blame them. Top tier candidates Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders have no point of reference on what makes the free market work. Moreover, none of the three can claim credit for creating a single private sector job in the last 50 years. Instead, they are ignorant of the processes that create job growth. Our economy is at full employment for the first time in two full decades. Why would the nation jeopardize this for candidates who have close to zero experience in the free market?

Despite platitudes about being “Middle Class Joe,” Biden has never had business leadership. Perhaps the closest thing he holds in private sector experience was his time as a teenage lifeguard, fending off gang leaders named “Corn Pop.” Biden spent a few years working as an attorney before getting elected to the Senate back in 1973. His time as a senator and vice president spanned more than 40 years. While he often touted his poverty relative to many of his political colleagues, Biden owes his current wealth to his time in office, notwithstanding the business schemes of his son.

Warren also has scarce private sector experience, limited to waiting a few tables and some legal work. The senator promises trillion dollar programs like “Medicare for All” and universal free college, which would likely raise taxes on working people and cripple the economy. Indeed, her proposals would translate into a “100 percent recession,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin declared. Moreover, the language surrounding her government plan for “economic patriotism” is almost Orwellian in its falseness. But I guess it is more understandable coming from someone worth $12 million writing missives from her comfortable $3 million mansion in Cambridge.

Even her first claim to fame, a coauthored 1989 treatise on middle class debt, was derided by Rutgers University professor Philip Shuchman as having serious errors and “repeated instances of scientific misconduct.” The closest thing to a private sector job that Warren could have created would have been an editor to create a revised version of the book, which she herself declined to pen. It remains eminently difficult for Warren to pitch a government plan for an economy that she misjudged for years.

Sanders certainly comes with the least experience in the real world. Never one to hold down a private sector job, he was kicked out of a commune for laziness in 1971. Even counting his time in public service, Sanders had never worked a full time job until he was almost 40 years old. Since then, he has made a career of telling others how to live their lives, serving four terms as the mayor Burlington then almost four decades in Congress.

As I have written before, federal taxpayers have financed Sanders to the tune of more than $4.5 million. The economic plans of the Democratic socialist include tax hikes on everyone making more than $29,000 a year and company owners compelled by the force of government to create worker cooperatives. Tax increases and government control will only destroy what has been built over the last three years. With 3.5 percent unemployment, why would voters choose to mess up what is working?

To these candidates, private money comes from public sector action, not the other way around. None of the factions of the Democrats has offered any proposals that would strengthen the economy, and their government plans would be to the detriment of workers. From Biden and his bridge to back toward a dire economy, to Warren and her grating corporatism, to Sanders and his refusal to admit the Soviet Union experiment did not work, each sorely lack the private sector experience to run the nation.

As we pull into Reaganesque economic good times, the worst thing that Americans can do now is to take the candidates at their own words and jeopardize the compelling job and wage growth. Main Streets across the nation prove that the free market works. Let us allow Democrats to either moderate their message or relegate their socialist ideas to the dustbin of history where they belong. Next time you are willing to discount their lack of business experience, just ask yourself, is it worth losing your job over?

SOURCE 

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Lindsey Graham Promises Impeachment Will Die Quickly in Senate

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made himself clear on Sunday during an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”

“The whole process [against President Donald Trump] is illegitimate in the House,” said the senator.

“It’s not just the whistleblower. You don’t want to create a situation where an anonymous person can start impeachment proceedings against the president of the United States. You can’t get a parking ticket based on that anonymous allegation.”

“The hearings were held behind closed doors,” he continued. “The [House] Intel Committee gathered all the facts. The president’s lawyer was never allowed to participate. They asked to call witnesses in the [House] Judiciary Committee. They had one hearing in the committee with four law professors and [after that] [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi said, ‘We’re going to move forward with articles of impeachment.'”

“This is a joke of a process.” “It’s dangerous to the country,” added Graham.

He also said, “This is being driven by [Rep. Adam] Schiff [of California] and [Rep. Jerry] Nadler [of New Jersey], Pelosi — partisan people.”

“I think it’s going to meet a quick end in the Senate,” he also predicted.

Democrats appear to be eyeing a vote on articles of impeachment before Christmas, as The Hill noted — so the House Judiciary Committee “could move as soon as later next week” on sending those articles to the floor for consideration.

Bartiromo asked Graham that if the matter does wind up going a trial in the Senate, “Who are some of the people you are going to want to hear from?” She added, “And will the president get a fair trial? Are you going to demand that people like the whistleblower, Adam Schiff, Alexandra Chalupa [a former DNC contractor and staffer], Fusion GPS — are these some of the people or organizations you’re going to want to question?”

Graham said that there are “two ways to do this. In the trial you can have the president present a defense to prove, in fact, that maybe the [county of] Ukraine was interfering in our election. The Russians stole the emails, not the Ukraine — but there’s articles suggesting Ukrainian officials met with Democratic operatives in 2016.”

“I don’t know if that’s true,” he went on, “but here’s what I’m going to do with the trial. I’m going to try to get this over as quickly as possible, listen to … the House case, let them present their case, and if there’s nothing new and dramatic, I would be ready to vote and we can do all this other stuff through congressional oversight.”

“So, are you saying you’re not going to have people come down and testify?” Bartiromo asked in a follow-up.

Graham replied, “I am saying that I’m going to end this as quickly as I can for the good of the country. When 51 of us say we’ve heard enough, the trial is going to end. The president’s going to be acquitted. He may want to call Schiff. He may want to call Hunter Biden. He may want to call Joe Biden. But here’s my advice to the president. If the Senate is ready to vote and ready to acquit you, you should celebrate that — and we can look at this other stuff outside of impeachment.”

“Impeachment is tearing the country apart. I don’t want to give it any more credibility than it deserves.”

Later on in the interview, Graham also said, “Because I’m not going to participate in things I think will destroy the country. I’m not going to call a bunch of House members to come to the Senate as part of oversight. Now, if you’re a House member and you participated, you’re not subject — you’re not above the law, but we’re not going to turn the Senate into a circus, and I would tell Schiff what you’re doing is very dangerous for separation of powers here.”

He added, “Adam Schiff is doing a lot of damage to the country and he needs to stop. Mueller spent two years and $25 million looking at Trump. This whole Ukrainian stuff is a joke. They got the money [meaning the military aid]. They got the meeting with the president. They didn’t investigate Joe Biden or Hunter Biden.”

“There is no ‘there’ there.”

SOURCE 

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"Chevron deference" (deference to the bureaucracy) is a joke in the era of the swamp

Cleta Mitchell is an excellent attorney who has been retained by FreedomWorks organizations for nearly a decade. She makes an excellent argument for overturning “the Supreme Court’s 1984 decision in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. National Resources Defense Council, in which the court articulated a principle that federal agency decisions should receive deference in federal litigation because of the ‘expertise’ of the federal agency in matters involving the agency. Known popularly as Chevron deference, it presupposes that the agency and its employees are not only experts, but are philosophically neutral in the discharge of their duties.”

Cleta continues; “What we’ve seen during the Rep. Adam Schiff hearings is that ‘experts’ in federal agencies exhibit bias and political philosophies of their own. They are not neutral.”

Cleta knows from years of being involved with federal agencies that bureaucrats crave and cherish the compulsory powers of government: “It isn’t just that these people form the backbone of the resistance to President Trump. The reality is that no conservative, smaller government, pro-America president will ever be allowed success by these partisans who command and control the direction, actions, and decisions of the federal government.”

“If we learn nothing else from the impeachment inquiry, it should be abundantly clear that the federal workforce is a political party of its own, and does not deserve judicial deference of any kind.”

Most definitely, the Supreme Court should reconsider Chevron deference, and will hopefully reverse that decision.

Unfortunately, what Cleta has stated not only applies to State Department employees, but to all employees of federal agencies. Cleta opined that “the federal workforce is a political party of its own.” A more accurate assessment would be that the federal workforce is a major component of the Democratic party, and both the bureaucrats and the Democrats continuously promote more government. The federal government has more than four hundred agencies and nearly 2 million employees. The vast majority of the employees philosophically and politically support more government. In return the federal employees receive good salaries, job security, and excellent retirement and healthcare benefits.

The bureaucrats have a favorite saying when talking about their relationship with politicians: “We be here, when you be gone.” In other words, bureaucrats are safe, secure, and satisfied in their jobs; politicians are normally seeking higher political positions and power.

Then add all the multitude of state and local government employees with similar philosophies and perks, and you increase the power of the Democrats enormously. This is a major reason for more government regulations, incompetent management, and increasing government debt.

Cleta is absolutely correct. The Supreme Court must reverse the Chevron decision. And “We the People” need to reduce the size and power of the federal, state, and many local governments, which is much more difficult than convincing the Supreme Court.

SOURCE 

********************************

Good news about the media

While the Trump Economy is working great for most people, one industry hasn't been enjoying the boom: the media. According to Business Insider, the media industry is continuing to cut jobs this year.

The media industry continued to execute cuts in December and November as Gannett, Highsnobiety, and the CBC reduced headcounts. The cuts followed large rounds of layoffs earlier in the year from companies including BuzzFeed, Verizon, and Vice Media.

The massive cuts this year represent a recent trend in media that has seen upstart companies and newspapers alike shrinking and disappearing.

It's not just print media that's not feeling the love. Buzzfeed experienced layoffs this year. An attempt to relaunch Gawker failed. HuffPost laid off 13 in its video department. ThinkProgress shut down in September.

Even television media is experiencing a slow bleed. NBCUniversal laid off 70 employees in two rounds in August and September.

In September, NBCUniversal announced that it would be laying off 45 more employees from E!, Oxygen, Bravo, and other properties, according to MediaPost.

In August, E! announced that as part of its decision to move it's "E! News" show from LA to New York, it would be laying off 20 to 25 LA employees, Variety reports.

CNN also let go about 100 employees in the spring as part of a "corporate restructuring" effort.

SOURCE 

***********************************

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  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here 

**************************

How can top Democrats run the economy with no business skill?

The market news today must be especially worrisome for the field of Democratic presidential candidates. The latest jobs report turned out much better than expected, with 266,000 additional payrolls created, propelling the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its strongest trading session in two months and marking the “best numbers of our lives.”

That, of course, will not stop the rhetoric from the candidates. For all of the talk of the Green New Deal, most of the focus of Democrats is not on the economic health of the middle class. To a certain extent, however, you cannot even blame them. Top tier candidates Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders have no point of reference on what makes the free market work. Moreover, none of the three can claim credit for creating a single private sector job in the last 50 years. Instead, they are ignorant of the processes that create job growth. Our economy is at full employment for the first time in two full decades. Why would the nation jeopardize this for candidates who have close to zero experience in the free market?

Despite platitudes about being “Middle Class Joe,” Biden has never had business leadership. Perhaps the closest thing he holds in private sector experience was his time as a teenage lifeguard, fending off gang leaders named “Corn Pop.” Biden spent a few years working as an attorney before getting elected to the Senate back in 1973. His time as a senator and vice president spanned more than 40 years. While he often touted his poverty relative to many of his political colleagues, Biden owes his current wealth to his time in office, notwithstanding the business schemes of his son.

Warren also has scarce private sector experience, limited to waiting a few tables and some legal work. The senator promises trillion dollar programs like “Medicare for All” and universal free college, which would likely raise taxes on working people and cripple the economy. Indeed, her proposals would translate into a “100 percent recession,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin declared. Moreover, the language surrounding her government plan for “economic patriotism” is almost Orwellian in its falseness. But I guess it is more understandable coming from someone worth $12 million writing missives from her comfortable $3 million mansion in Cambridge.

Even her first claim to fame, a coauthored 1989 treatise on middle class debt, was derided by Rutgers University professor Philip Shuchman as having serious errors and “repeated instances of scientific misconduct.” The closest thing to a private sector job that Warren could have created would have been an editor to create a revised version of the book, which she herself declined to pen. It remains eminently difficult for Warren to pitch a government plan for an economy that she misjudged for years.

Sanders certainly comes with the least experience in the real world. Never one to hold down a private sector job, he was kicked out of a commune for laziness in 1971. Even counting his time in public service, Sanders had never worked a full time job until he was almost 40 years old. Since then, he has made a career of telling others how to live their lives, serving four terms as the mayor Burlington then almost four decades in Congress.

As I have written before, federal taxpayers have financed Sanders to the tune of more than $4.5 million. The economic plans of the Democratic socialist include tax hikes on everyone making more than $29,000 a year and company owners compelled by the force of government to create worker cooperatives. Tax increases and government control will only destroy what has been built over the last three years. With 3.5 percent unemployment, why would voters choose to mess up what is working?

To these candidates, private money comes from public sector action, not the other way around. None of the factions of the Democrats has offered any proposals that would strengthen the economy, and their government plans would be to the detriment of workers. From Biden and his bridge to back toward a dire economy, to Warren and her grating corporatism, to Sanders and his refusal to admit the Soviet Union experiment did not work, each sorely lack the private sector experience to run the nation.

As we pull into Reaganesque economic good times, the worst thing that Americans can do now is to take the candidates at their own words and jeopardize the compelling job and wage growth. Main Streets across the nation prove that the free market works. Let us allow Democrats to either moderate their message or relegate their socialist ideas to the dustbin of history where they belong. Next time you are willing to discount their lack of business experience, just ask yourself, is it worth losing your job over?

SOURCE 

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Lindsey Graham Promises Impeachment Will Die Quickly in Senate

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made himself clear on Sunday during an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”

“The whole process [against President Donald Trump] is illegitimate in the House,” said the senator.

“It’s not just the whistleblower. You don’t want to create a situation where an anonymous person can start impeachment proceedings against the president of the United States. You can’t get a parking ticket based on that anonymous allegation.”

“The hearings were held behind closed doors,” he continued. “The [House] Intel Committee gathered all the facts. The president’s lawyer was never allowed to participate. They asked to call witnesses in the [House] Judiciary Committee. They had one hearing in the committee with four law professors and [after that] [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi said, ‘We’re going to move forward with articles of impeachment.'”

“This is a joke of a process.” “It’s dangerous to the country,” added Graham.

He also said, “This is being driven by [Rep. Adam] Schiff [of California] and [Rep. Jerry] Nadler [of New Jersey], Pelosi — partisan people.”

“I think it’s going to meet a quick end in the Senate,” he also predicted.

Democrats appear to be eyeing a vote on articles of impeachment before Christmas, as The Hill noted — so the House Judiciary Committee “could move as soon as later next week” on sending those articles to the floor for consideration.

Bartiromo asked Graham that if the matter does wind up going a trial in the Senate, “Who are some of the people you are going to want to hear from?” She added, “And will the president get a fair trial? Are you going to demand that people like the whistleblower, Adam Schiff, Alexandra Chalupa [a former DNC contractor and staffer], Fusion GPS — are these some of the people or organizations you’re going to want to question?”

Graham said that there are “two ways to do this. In the trial you can have the president present a defense to prove, in fact, that maybe the [county of] Ukraine was interfering in our election. The Russians stole the emails, not the Ukraine — but there’s articles suggesting Ukrainian officials met with Democratic operatives in 2016.”

“I don’t know if that’s true,” he went on, “but here’s what I’m going to do with the trial. I’m going to try to get this over as quickly as possible, listen to … the House case, let them present their case, and if there’s nothing new and dramatic, I would be ready to vote and we can do all this other stuff through congressional oversight.”

“So, are you saying you’re not going to have people come down and testify?” Bartiromo asked in a follow-up.

Graham replied, “I am saying that I’m going to end this as quickly as I can for the good of the country. When 51 of us say we’ve heard enough, the trial is going to end. The president’s going to be acquitted. He may want to call Schiff. He may want to call Hunter Biden. He may want to call Joe Biden. But here’s my advice to the president. If the Senate is ready to vote and ready to acquit you, you should celebrate that — and we can look at this other stuff outside of impeachment.”

“Impeachment is tearing the country apart. I don’t want to give it any more credibility than it deserves.”

Later on in the interview, Graham also said, “Because I’m not going to participate in things I think will destroy the country. I’m not going to call a bunch of House members to come to the Senate as part of oversight. Now, if you’re a House member and you participated, you’re not subject — you’re not above the law, but we’re not going to turn the Senate into a circus, and I would tell Schiff what you’re doing is very dangerous for separation of powers here.”

He added, “Adam Schiff is doing a lot of damage to the country and he needs to stop. Mueller spent two years and $25 million looking at Trump. This whole Ukrainian stuff is a joke. They got the money [meaning the military aid]. They got the meeting with the president. They didn’t investigate Joe Biden or Hunter Biden.”

“There is no ‘there’ there.”

SOURCE 

*********************************

"Chevron deference" (deference to the bureaucracy) is a joke in the era of the swamp

Cleta Mitchell is an excellent attorney who has been retained by FreedomWorks organizations for nearly a decade. She makes an excellent argument for overturning “the Supreme Court’s 1984 decision in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. National Resources Defense Council, in which the court articulated a principle that federal agency decisions should receive deference in federal litigation because of the ‘expertise’ of the federal agency in matters involving the agency. Known popularly as Chevron deference, it presupposes that the agency and its employees are not only experts, but are philosophically neutral in the discharge of their duties.”

Cleta continues; “What we’ve seen during the Rep. Adam Schiff hearings is that ‘experts’ in federal agencies exhibit bias and political philosophies of their own. They are not neutral.”

Cleta knows from years of being involved with federal agencies that bureaucrats crave and cherish the compulsory powers of government: “It isn’t just that these people form the backbone of the resistance to President Trump. The reality is that no conservative, smaller government, pro-America president will ever be allowed success by these partisans who command and control the direction, actions, and decisions of the federal government.”

“If we learn nothing else from the impeachment inquiry, it should be abundantly clear that the federal workforce is a political party of its own, and does not deserve judicial deference of any kind.”

Most definitely, the Supreme Court should reconsider Chevron deference, and will hopefully reverse that decision.

Unfortunately, what Cleta has stated not only applies to State Department employees, but to all employees of federal agencies. Cleta opined that “the federal workforce is a political party of its own.” A more accurate assessment would be that the federal workforce is a major component of the Democratic party, and both the bureaucrats and the Democrats continuously promote more government. The federal government has more than four hundred agencies and nearly 2 million employees. The vast majority of the employees philosophically and politically support more government. In return the federal employees receive good salaries, job security, and excellent retirement and healthcare benefits.

The bureaucrats have a favorite saying when talking about their relationship with politicians: “We be here, when you be gone.” In other words, bureaucrats are safe, secure, and satisfied in their jobs; politicians are normally seeking higher political positions and power.

Then add all the multitude of state and local government employees with similar philosophies and perks, and you increase the power of the Democrats enormously. This is a major reason for more government regulations, incompetent management, and increasing government debt.

Cleta is absolutely correct. The Supreme Court must reverse the Chevron decision. And “We the People” need to reduce the size and power of the federal, state, and many local governments, which is much more difficult than convincing the Supreme Court.

SOURCE 

********************************

Good news about the media

While the Trump Economy is working great for most people, one industry hasn't been enjoying the boom: the media. According to Business Insider, the media industry is continuing to cut jobs this year.

The media industry continued to execute cuts in December and November as Gannett, Highsnobiety, and the CBC reduced headcounts. The cuts followed large rounds of layoffs earlier in the year from companies including BuzzFeed, Verizon, and Vice Media.

The massive cuts this year represent a recent trend in media that has seen upstart companies and newspapers alike shrinking and disappearing.

It's not just print media that's not feeling the love. Buzzfeed experienced layoffs this year. An attempt to relaunch Gawker failed. HuffPost laid off 13 in its video department. ThinkProgress shut down in September.

Even television media is experiencing a slow bleed. NBCUniversal laid off 70 employees in two rounds in August and September.

In September, NBCUniversal announced that it would be laying off 45 more employees from E!, Oxygen, Bravo, and other properties, according to MediaPost.

In August, E! announced that as part of its decision to move it's "E! News" show from LA to New York, it would be laying off 20 to 25 LA employees, Variety reports.

CNN also let go about 100 employees in the spring as part of a "corporate restructuring" effort.

SOURCE 

***********************************

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  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here 

**************************

House Democrats have not convinced additional voters that President Trump should be impeached, new poll shows

A new poll suggests that Democrats have failed to garner broad support for their case for impeaching President Donald Trump.

The Yahoo News/YouGov poll, conducted from December 4 to 6, found that televised impeachment hearings did not move the needle for voters on the impeachment question.

Today, 47 percent of registered voters are in favor of impeaching Trump in the House, compared to 37 percent who are opposed, according to the poll. The first number is virtually unchanged from last month, while the opposition has dropped from 45 percent.

Since the last poll in late November, voters have grown more polarized. Among Democrats there's been a net swing of seven percentage points in favor of impeachment, and Republicans swung 11 points in the opposite direction — but independents remain virtually unchanged.

The poll shows that a slight majority, 52 percent, agree that Trump was 'primarily acting in his own personal and political self-interest' in regard to Ukraine.

However, that number remains unchanged from the last poll, despite this being the central finding of the House Intelligence Committee's impeachment report.

Trump on Saturday blasted Democrats in remarks to reporters on the White House lawn. 'The impeachment thing is a total hoax. The numbers have totally swung our way. They don't want to see impeachment. Especially in the swing states they've swung our way. I've never seen a swing like this,' he said.

On Saturday, the House Democrats issued a lengthy report drawing on history and the Founding Fathers to lay out the legal argument over the case against President Donald Trump's actions toward Ukraine.

The findings from the House Judiciary Committee do not spell out the formal charges against the president, which are being drafted ahead of votes, possibly as soon as next week.

Trump has insisted he did nothing wrong. 'Witch Hunt!'the president tweeted Saturday morning. He implored his millions of followers to 'Read the Transcripts!' of his telephone calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to judge for themselves. 

SOURCE 

************************************

Trump Administration to Close Food Stamp Eligibility Loopholes for Able-Bodied Adults

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue is expected to announce a finalized rule Wednesday to promote self-sufficiency for able-bodied adults without children who receive food stamps.

The rule aims to close loopholes used by states that frequently grant broad exemptions for recipients to remain on food stamps longer without actively seeking a job or work training.

The Department of Agriculture’s final rule on food stamps—formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—would affect able-bodied adults between the ages of 18 and 49 who do not have dependents. The rule wouldn’t apply to parents with minor children, the elderly, or disabled people.

The Agriculture Department notes that with the lowest unemployment rate in more than 50 years, “work-capable” Americans can find employment more easily. The unemployment rate is currently 3.6% with 7 million job openings in the United States, according to the Labor Department.

So, the USDA contends, now is the opportune time to promote entry into the workforce, because the longer someone is out of work, the more difficult it becomes to get hired.

The agency contends the food stamp program is intended to be for assistance in difficult times, rather than a way of life.

The existing statute already limits adults aged 18 to 49 with no children or other dependents to three months of benefits in a three-year period. The exceptions come if the recipients work or participate in work training for at least 20 hours per week.

However, the law allows states to apply for waivers of this time limit due to economic conditions. For some states, that has turned into a loophole. Some counties with an unemployment rate as low as 2.5% were included in waived areas, according to the USDA.

The statute says states may grant waivers for areas with a 10% unemployment rate. However, the USDA and states have been flexible and creative in interpreting the waivers, according to research by the Foundation for Government Accountability. 

Officials in 33 states waived rules for parts or all of their states. Illinois exempts 101 of 102 counties, even though none has the 10% or higher unemployment rate mentioned in the statute.

Some states also group together regions with varying unemployment rates to inflate the numbers, according to The Wall Street Journal. Georgia exempts 66 counties. California exempted 55 of its 58 counties, including wealthy Marin County, which has had an unemployment rate below 3%.

The final rule still allows states to have flexibility to waive the time limit in areas of high unemployment. But states will have a responsibility to assess individuals as work-capable and will have to focus on helping food stamp recipients find a path to self-sufficiency, such as job-training programs.

SOURCE 

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The Left Hates The Salvation Army. That's All You Need to Know About the Left

We all know some individuals who are so obviously good and kind that we are certain if anyone were to dislike them, that's all we would need to know about the person. We would immediately assume he or she is a bad person. To hate the manifestly good is a sure sign of being bad.

Such is the case regarding the left's hatred of The Salvation Army. You don't have to be a Christian -- I am not -- to appreciate the goodness of the people who run and work for The Salvation Army. They devote their lives to helping the poorest, the saddest, the loneliest and the most troubled among us -- completely irrespective of race, gender, transgender identity, faith or no faith. And they do it for almost no money. They do it because of their Christian faith.

They provide these downtrodden people with not only food and shelter but also human warmth and love. And they offer the people they care for the one thing most likely to get them out of their predicament: meaning. They offer it; they do not coerce it. And while the vehicle for this meaning -- Christian faith -- may not be your faith or mine, so what? It takes a truly narrow-minded bigot to want to deprive people of meaning just because that meaning is rooted in faith or in a faith other than their own.

Yet, leftists -- most especially LGBTQ groups, which spread a remarkable amount of hate in the name of "love" -- seek to crush The Salvation Army. They threaten and pressure whoever supports The Salvation Army. "British pop singer Ellie Goulding," the Wall Street Journal recently reported, "threatened to cancel an appearance at the Dallas Cowboys' Thanksgiving halftime show, which will celebrate the army's red-kettle campaign, unless it made a 'pledge or donation to the LGBTQ community.' She backed down after the Salvation Army assured her it serves needy members of that community."

SPLC Targets Franklin Graham for 'Hate Group' Speech
Most depressing of all, Chick-fil-A, a business owned by a Christian and heretofore run according to Christian principles, caved in to LGBTQ organizations' pressure and stopped funding The Salvation Army, while it has also donated to a left-wing group that hates the good, the Southern Poverty Law Center.

I never thought I'd see the day when The Salvation Army would be hated by a substantial number of Americans or lose the support of a Christian-run business.

But given the left's loathing of virtually all things good -- such as America, Israel, traditional Christianity and Judaism, the Boy Scouts, the nuclear family ideal, Thanksgiving and America's founders -- it is not surprising.

As I have said for years, the left destroys everything it touches: music, art, Christianity, Judaism, economies, universities, high schools, late-night comedy, pro football, women's likelihood of finding happiness, men's likelihood of maturing, the Boy Scouts and the innocence of children (think "Drag Queen Story Hour" for 5-year-olds at libraries), to cite some of the more obvious examples.

And while it destroys good institutions, the left never builds a viable replacement. Is there a left-wing equivalent to the Boy Scouts, a left-wing institution that helps mold boys into responsible men? Of course not. The left destroys, but it builds nothing -- except state power. Or, to take the present example, is there a left-wing equivalent to The Salvation Army? No, there isn't.

"We believe we are the largest provider of poverty relief to the LGBTQ+ population," The Salvation Army said in a statement after Chick-fil-A announced its decision. As the Wall Street Journal concluded, "Considering it serves nearly 25 million people every year, that's likely true."

But all the good The Salvation Army does means nothing to the left. The left judges people or institutions not by their behavior but by their beliefs. And The Salvation Army believes -- as has every civilization in recorded history, and as former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton did until a few years ago -- that marriage should be defined as the union of a man and a woman. To the left, that belief outweighs helping 25 million people including married gays.

One of the great puzzles in contemporary American life is whether there is anything the left could do to make Americans understand how destructive it is. If suppressing free speech at colleges and on the internet, fomenting interracial anger, supporting those who wish to annihilate Israel, allowing (and even encouraging) teenage girls to have their healthy breasts surgically removed if they think they are a boy and trying to crush The Salvation Army don't do it, probably nothing will.

SOURCE 

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House Democrats Pass Bill to Fight Voter ID Laws Nationwide

They NEED voter fraud

While the country is being distracted by the Democrats' bogus impeachment, House Democrats passed H.R. 4, the so-called Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2019, on a mostly party-line vote. Democrats claim the legislation is about fighting voter suppression—because when Democrats lose elections it can only be because of voter suppression, obviously. "Action is urgently needed to combat the brazen voter suppression campaign that is spreading across America," Nancy Pelosi claimed at a press event Friday before the bill's passage.

The bill, if signed into law, would require states to obtain "preclearance" from the Justice Department in order to make changes to voter laws—a blatant infringement of states' rights. Why would Democrats want such a law in place? According to House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), the Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2019, "is a good step to right the wrongs that've dismantled the fundamental right to vote through Voter ID laws, purging voter rolls & closing majority-minority polling places."

The number one target of this legislation is clearly Voter ID laws. Many states passed Voter ID laws during the Obama administration and they were subsequently challenged in the courts. If this law had been in place during the Obama years, Eric Holder or Lorretta Lynch would have had the power to stop states from passing those laws.

It's obvious what this legislation is really about. Democrats are fighting efforts to ensure the integrity of our elections. “This bill would essentially federalize state and local election laws when there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that those states or localities engaged in any discriminatory behavior when it comes to voting,” said Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.). "The Supreme Court has made clear that this type of federal control over state and local elections is unconstitutional, because Congress can only do that when there’s proof of actual discrimination, which is what this bill is supposed to be about," he added.

Collins also believes the problem Democrats claim to want to fix isn't actually a problem. "Voting rights are protected in this country, including in my own state of Georgia, where Latino and African American voter turnout has soared. Between 2014 and 2018, voter turnout increased by double digits for both men and women in both of these communities."

As scary as this legislation is, it won't go anywhere in the U.S. Senate. But, make no mistake about it, Democrats oppose every attempt to ensure the integrity of our elections, and they won't stop.

SOURCE 

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Battleground Ohio: Investigation Uncovers Hundreds of Illegally Registered Non-Citizen Voters

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced on Wednesday that an investigation by his office has uncovered hundreds of illegally registered non-citizen voters, 77 of whom cast ballots in the November 2018 election.

In a letter to Attorney Dave Yost on December 4, LaRose, a Republican, explained, "As a result of our review, my office has identified 277 individuals who registered to vote in Ohio and 77 individuals who cast a ballot in an Ohio election and who appear to be legally present, noncitizens."

The Secretary of State said the review "utilized a cross-matching of the voter rolls in the Statewide Voter Registration Database with the list of individuals who have Ohio driver licenses or state identification cards." He noted that while the state does not maintain a "comprehensive database" of non-citizens in Ohio, Bureau of Motor Vehicles records do indicate the citizenship status of individuals who apply for driver's licenses or state identification cards.

The 277 individuals who registered to vote and the 77 who cast a ballot "each provided the BMV with documentation identifying themselves as non-citizens on at least two occasions, once before their voter activity and once after," LaRose said.

More HERE 

***********************************

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  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here 

**************************

Donald Trump hails 'GREAT' jobs report as economy booms with 266,000 new jobs in November and 50-year low unemployment

Lots of good numbers

Donald Trump hailed a 'blowout' job creation record in November as the Labor Department said employment expanded by 266,000 in the month - blasting past economists' expectations.

Trump tweeted 'GREAT JOBS REPORT!' and the verdict of Fox Business Network anchor Maria Bartiromo, who has become one of his main media allies, that is was 'a blowout.'

Hiring in the United States jumped last month to its highest level since January as U.S. employers shrugged off global trade conflicts.

The unemployment rate declined to 3.5% from 3.6% in October, matching a half-century low, the Labor Department reported Friday. And wages rose a solid 3.1% in November compared with a year earlier.

Bartiromo called manufacturing a 'blowout,' with 54,000 new jobs, although 44,000 of those were GM workers returning from their strike; other surveys have shown manufacturing activity contracted in November.

The healthy job gain runs against a widespread view that businesses are struggling to find workers with unemployment so low.

Persistent hiring should help keep consumers spending - a key engine of growth as businesses have cut their investment spending and exports have stalled.

Monthly job growth has in fact accelerated since this summer, averaging 205,000 over the past three months, up from just 135,000 in July.

Steady hiring has helped reassure consumers that the economy is expanding and that their jobs and incomes remain secure, which, in turn, has helped fuel spending.

Consumer spending has become an even more important driver of growth because the Trump administration's trade conflicts have reduced exports and led many businesses to cut spending.

Employment growth was also boosted by a gain of 60,200 healthcare workers. That lifted job growth well above its monthly average of 180,000 this year.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast payrolls rising by 180,000 jobs in November.

The economy was also found to have created 41,000 more jobs in September and October than previously estimated.

The 40-day strike by about 46,000 workers at GM plants in Michigan and Kentucky restricted employment gains to 156,000 jobs in October.

Manufacturing activity contracted for a fourth straight month in November. The factory malaise has been blamed on the Trump administration's 17-month trade war with China, which has bruised business confidence and undercut capital expenditure.

Though Washington and Beijing are working on a 'phase one' trade deal, the United States has ratcheted up tensions with other trade partners including Brazil, Argentina and France. President Donald Trump said on Thursday the United States was having meetings and discussions with China 'that are going well.'

Economic growth estimates for the fourth quarter are converging around a 1.8% annualized rate. The economy grew at a 2.1% pace in the third quarter. Economists estimate the speed at which the economy can grow over a long period without igniting inflation at between 1.7% and 2%.

The surge in November payrolls defied an Institute for Supply Management survey showing a measure of manufacturing employment contracted in November for the fourth straight month. It also confounded the ADP National Employment report showing a sharp deceleration in private payrolls growth last month and consumers' perceptions of the labor market were less upbeat.

But cooler-than-normal temperatures in November curbed hiring at construction sites and mines.

Though the labor market remains resilient despite the business investment downturn, hiring has slowed from last year's average monthly gain of 223,000 because of ebbing demand and a shortage of workers.

Renewed concerns that trade will continue to hamper the U.S. economy drove stock prices lower earlier this week, after President Donald Trump said he was willing to wait until after the 2020 elections to strike a preliminary trade agreement with China.   

With the two sides still haggling, the administration is set to impose 15% tariffs on an additional $160 billion of Chinese imports beginning Dec. 15.

Both sides have since suggested that the negotiations are making progress, but there is still no sign of a resolution.

Hiring in the United States has remained mostly healthy this year despite the trade war. Even so, Trump's combative use of import taxes, combined with retaliatory tariffs by China and Europe, has stalled job growth in manufacturing.

Employers have been hiring at a solid enough pace to absorb new job seekers and to potentially lower the unemployment rate, though the pace of job growth is down from last year.

The holiday shopping season has begun later this year compared with previous years, a fact that some economists think might have delayed hiring by retailers and shipping firms last month.

With tariffs hobbling manufacturing, the job market this year has underscored a bifurcation in the economy: Service industries - finance, engineering, health care and the like - have been hiring at a solid pace, while manufacturers, miners and builders have been posting weak numbers.

Despite the raging trade tensions, most analysts say they remain hopeful about the economy and the job market.

The economy grew at a 2.1% annual rate in the July-September quarter, and the annual pace is thought to be slowing to roughly 1.5% to 2% in the final three months of the year - sluggish but far from recessionary.

Consumer confidence has slipped in recent months but remains at a decent level, helping boost sales of expensive purchases, such as autos and appliances.

With inflation surprisingly low, the Federal Reserve has cut its benchmark short-term interest rate three times this year.

Those rate cuts have helped support the housing market. Sales of existing homes have risen nearly 5% in the past year. Sales of new homes have soared by one-third. 

SOURCE 

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Impeachment Is Destroying CNN

If Democrats and their media allies thought that the impeachment of President Trump would be his undoing, I've got bad news for them: it's actually undoing them. The Democrats' favorite (fake) news channel CNN is suffering from a three-year low in ratings.

According to Disrn, CNN "reached a three-year low in ratings over the Thanksgiving holidays, averaging 643,000 primetime viewers. The news outlet also saw its worst week for viewers among the 25-43 demographic." In that group, CNN only pulled 138,000 viewers. That's pathetic.

Fox News, on the other hand, "posted higher ratings than CNN and MSNBC combined, averaging nearly 2.2 million viewers during primetime last week. The network also pulled in 303,000 viewers ages 25 to 54," which is the most important target group for advertisers.

In other words, Fox News is utterly and completely destroying the competition. Now, there's nothing new about that in itself, but what is new is CNN's complete and utter irrelevance in the news world. If you're thinking to yourself, "CNN? I never watch it!", you're not only talking for yourself but for just about every single American. There's literally just about nobody watching any of its programs -- let alone those scheduled outside of primetime.

How deep the once mighty have fallen. It's unbelievable. CNN was once an example to be followed. And now? Not one self-respecting real journalist, with ambition, would want to work for them.

There's just one way for CNN to turn this around. They've got to do something that hasn't been tried in decades. We have Fox News which is pro-Republican. We have MSNBC which is pro-Democrats. CNN's attempt to imitate MSNBC is destroying the channel. The way forward is for CNN to actually hire real journalists to -- and this is going to shock a lot of people -- do real journalism. Be proudly neutral. Don't air any shows by "commentators." Don't mix opinion with news. You bring the news, and that's it. When you have talk shows, you can invite guests who are not objective, but the presenter has to be absolutely, 100 percent neutral.

This is the only way for CNN to save themselves. If they don't choose this path going forward, they're doomed.

SOURCE 

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Impeachment Is Great for Trump: Approval Rating Rises to 52%

Thursday was a fantastic day for President Donald Trump. The reason? Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced Democrats will proceed with articles of impeachment against him. While that may normally be less than great for a president, in Trump's case it's absolutely delightful. In recent days, his approval rating among American voters has risen to 52%. And it's all because of the impeachment sham.

Rasmussen Reports' daily presidential tracking poll for Thursday shows that 52% of likely U.S. voters approve of the president's job performance. Forty-seven percent, on the other hand, disapprove. That's a three-point improvement compared to Wednesday.

What's more, 52% is the highest daily approval rating measured in two months' time. As usual, his approval ratings are especially driven by men. Fifty-nine percent of men approve, only 40% disapprove.

As for minority support: the daily tracking poll shows 31% approval for President Trump among likely African American voters. With regards to all other minorities, 61% of them approve, while a mere 38% disapprove. Those are stunning numbers for a Republican president -- especially in this extremely partisan age.

It goes to show that this entire impeachment hoax has been an absolute disaster for Democrats. The American people see straight through their attempts to rid themselves of a duly elected president only because they disagree with his policies and dislike him personally.

A lot of voters may not like Trump personally either. But he did win the 2016 election. Americans understand that impeachment can and should only be used as a last resort and only against a president who has actually committed a crime. In the case of Trump, it's clear that although the man himself is not exactly "likable," there is not even a shred of evidence that he's guilty of any "high crimes and misdemeanors."

In other words, it's all a sham. And everybody knows it.

The result is, rather logically, that Trump's approval rating rises. Americans will always stand by those who are treated unfairly. It's in the American DNA.

So, for Trump, it would be great if this impeachment hoax continues for as long as possible. Let Democrats push this, day in, day out. The end result can only be a Trump reelection and a Republican Senate and House.

SOURCE 

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IN BRIEF

MEANWHILE... Trump's tax cuts reduce U.S. burden to one of the lowest in the world (Fox Business)

STRATEGY: How House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy and his team tamed impeachment (Washington Examiner)

NOTHING TO SEE HERE: Mueller witness bragged about access to Clintons secured with illegal campaign cash, says Justice Department (Yahoo News)

MOVING TO THE LEFT: A sign of just how far left Democrats have moved under Trump: "Moderate" Joe Biden wants tax hikes twice as big as what Hillary Clinton proposed in 2016 (Reason)

FOX LAWSUIT: Playboy model Karen McDougal sues Fox News for defamation over alleged Trump affair (NBC News)

SEEKING COMMITMENTS: Texas Democrats urge Pelosi to press for border security as part of USMCA deal (National Review)

UPRISING: State Department Iran envoy calls protests "the worst political crisis the regime has faced in its 40 years" (National Review)

POLICY: We do not need to expand Social Security (National Review)

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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  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here 

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George Zimmerman SUES Trayvon Martin's family and Florida prosecutors for $100MILLION, claiming they engineered false evidence in his homicide trial for shooting dead the black teen in 2012

Zimmerman was certainly the target of a political prosecution.  There was nothing above-board about it

George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who was acquitted in the 2012 fatal shooting of unarmed black teen Trayvon Martin, is suing Martin's family and Florida prosecutors, claiming that they engineered false evidence in the homicide trial. 

The lawsuit filed Wednesday in Polk County Circuit Court seeks $100million in civil damages for defamation, abuse of civil process and conspiracy.

It alleges that the prosecution's key witness in Zimmerman's 2013 murder trial, Rachel Jeantel, was an imposter coached by the family and their lawyers.

The lead defendant in the suit is Sybrina Fulton, Martin's mother. Fulton became a nationally-acclaimed advocate for social justice and reducing gun violence in the wake of her son's death, and is now running for a seat on the Miami-Dade County Commission.

The second defendant is the family's attorney, Ben Crump. He is accused of defamation and attempting to 'deprive Zimmerman of his constitutional and other legal rights'.

The lawsuit also names Harper Collins, accusing the publisher of defaming Zimmerman by publishing Crump's book, Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People, 'with actual malice knowing the untruth or at a minimum a reckless disregard for the truth'.

Crump responded to the lawsuit on behalf of himself and Martin's parents in a statement Wednesday.

'This plaintiff continues to display a callous disregard for everyone but himself, revictimizing individuals whose lives were shattered by his own misguided actions,' he said.

Soon after reports of the lawsuit emerged, the hashtag #IStandWithSybrina began trending on Twitter as users expressed support for Martin's mom.

Zimmerman, 36, is being represented by high-profile conservative legal crusader Larry Klayman.  Klayman released the full legal complaint to the media on Wednesday before it was officially filed. 

The complaint alleges that the Sanford Police Department thoroughly investigated the February 2012 shooting and closed the case as self-defense the following month. 

One week later, the suit claims, Crump produced a recording of 'Diamond Eugene', who he said was Martin's 16-year-old girlfriend who was on the phone with the victims minutes before the confrontation with Zimmerman. 

Two days after that, 18-year-old Jeantel, Eugene's half sister, appeared before the court and 'provided false statements to incriminate Zimmerman based on coaching from others'.

The suit alleges that Martin's cell phone records prove Jeantel was not on the phone with him before the altercation, and that she 'lied repeatedly to cause Zimmerman's arrest and to try to send him to prison for life'.

It charges that Eugene was Martin's real girlfriend and did speak with him prior to the shooting, but that Eugene asked Jeantel to pretend to be her so that she didn't have to testify. 

Klayman said several defendants in the suit 'have been proven to know about the switch to the imposter witness' - including Fulton, Crump and Florida prosecutors Bernie de la Rionda, John Guy, Angela Corey. 

The attorney said the allegations did not emerge at the trial and that 'the fraud was perpetuated on the court'. 'It was a complete travesty of justice which destroyed my client's life,' Klayman said. 'People are destroyed and smeared and they have to start fighting back.'

Klayman said the allegations in the new lawsuit are based on shocking evidence exposed in a book and documentary by film director Joel Gilbert, called The Trayvon Hoax: Unmasking the Witness Fraud that Divided America.

The attorney, a former US Department of Justice prosecutor, is the founder of watchdog groups Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch.

SOURCE 

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Don't price workers out of their jobs

“Black Friday” sounds dire but is actually a cause for celebration. For most of the year, retail stores are fortunate just to break even. But the beginning of the holiday shopping season finally brings profit margins wide enough to carry them out of the red and into the black.

The day after Thanksgiving, and the coming days before Christmas, thus remind us of the importance of seasonal spending on our economy. They also provide a constant warning that the success of the retail industry depends on operating as efficiently as possible to keep up employment and production.

Yet just as the holiday season spikes job creation from brick-and-mortar department stores to warehouses for online retailers, Christmas carols also sound the tune of socialist sad-sacks demanding that state and city governments pass ordinances raising the minimum wage to $15 — no, $20! — per hour.

Companies such as Costco and Amazon are probably even wise to pay their workers a minimum of $15 per hour voluntarily. That they do so, and that only 2.3% of all jobs in the United States pay the actual minimum wage, is evidence that employers generally wouldn't and couldn't pay people less if there were no minimum wage at all.

But not all businesses are created equal. Department stores such as Macy’s have seen their profit margins slump asymptotically, and others, such as Sears, have gone back into the red seemingly for good. Given the mounting cost of deliveries and online competition for shoppers, there exist many stores, especially small businesses, that could not keep their doors open if they had to pay workers significantly more than our current federal minimum wage of $7.25.

For struggling stores and small businesses, holiday sales are a godsend. Even more welcome are the hundreds of thousands of jobs created. Retailers created more than 700,000 jobs during the holiday season last year. That includes not just hundreds of thousands from profitable juggernauts such as Target, but also 80,000 from Macy’s and 90,000 from Kohl’s. The labor market has continued to tighten, meaning companies that can afford higher wages will be forced by the market to provide them, or else lose competent, honest, and reliable workers.

Holiday-season workers comprise a little less than one-fifth of total retail sales workers, whose median wage was $11.70 per hour last year. With companies such as Piaggio now selling retail robots, automation is threatening the livelihoods of many retail workers. This will get worse if the government artificially increases the cost of hiring them with a $15 or $20 minimum wage, plus the additional employer payroll tax that comes with it. This is especially true given today's low inflation. Put it all together, and a sudden doubling of the minimum wage would make the option of outsourcing such jobs to robots all the more attractive.

Businesses could instead simply close, or stop hiring workers (especially younger workers) who do not produce $15-20 of value each hour. The workers worst hit would be those trying to pay for school or at the start of their careers.

Contrary to fears about robots and immigrants taking jobs, automation will create millions of skilled and semi-skilled jobs in coming years. But lower-income and younger workers in retail and manufacturing have the most to lose in the process of creative economic destruction. Take away low-wage jobs and you throw them out of work.

If your aim is to help low-income workers, there are much better ways to do it than to crank up the minimum wage. Oren Cass has argued for an expansion of earned income tax credits. Andrew Yang argues for a need-blind universal basic income. Whatever the merits of these proposals, at least neither one will mess up opportunities for willing, low-skilled workers.

That’s what matters most. Although a minimum wage increase sounds compassionate, making workers too expensive for their jobs is anything but. It is cruelty masked as sympathy.

SOURCE 

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Congress bans short-term lending, the poor pay a high price

Washington do-goodism almost always fails to help the people it is supposed to because politicians ignore the Law of Unintended Consequences. Nowhere is that more evident than when it comes to a congressional plan to put payday lenders and other short-term lending institutions, such as the burgeoning online lenders, out of business.

These are lenders that provide the service of last-minute or emergency loans –- typically of between $100 and $600 — to mostly low-income Americans or those with poor credit scores cash. Liberal “consumer advocacy groups” and liberals in Congress demonize these companies as modern day Shylocks, the nefarious lender in Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” who demands a pound of flesh if loans aren’t repaid on time. 

Rep. Jesus Garcia, Illinois Democrat, and Rep. Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Republican, are the cosponsors of a bill called the Veterans and Consumer Fair Credit Act, (the VFCA bill has nothing to do with veterans and several veteran groups have written to complain of this ruse). It would cap interest rates on short-term and emergency loans at 36 percent. Critics of short-term lenders say they “target” low-income and minority Americans. The left says this new law would “save” low-income Americans between $5 billion and $10 billion a year. 

No one forces anyone to go to these stores or use online lenders. They do so because these folks feel it’s the best and most convenient option for them. There’s no shortage of customers on a Thursday or Friday afternoon as workers line up to get an advance on their paychecks so they have spending money for the weekend or can pay their grocery bills.

It’s the same reason that tens of millions of more affluent Americans are willing to pay a $3.50 fee to get a $100 cash withdrawal from an ATM machine –- a convenience that many in Congress also want to prohibit.

The VFCA would make it illegal for a lender to provide someone with a $250 cash advance and then pay back the “loan” a week later with a $10 fee. But why? Can’t consenting adults make up their own mind about whether they want to engage in this transaction? Or is it really true that the left is so contemptuous of the poor that they think their voters are incapable of making sound every day decisions on their own?

Perhaps it is the Washington politicians who are the ones who are financially clueless here. Well more than half of all Americans live paycheck to paycheck today. Often times these workers have poor credit scores, so they can’t get a traditional loan or consumer credit from a bank. About one-in-five Americans can’t get a credit cards, or if they do have one, the alternative to a short-term payday or online loan when they are scrapped for cash, is to ring up debt on their Visa card, which is far more expensive than the charge on a payday loan.

According to a 2019 Federal Reserve Board study, almost 4-of-10 Americans today “lack the savings to cover an emergency expense of $400.”

For Americans tangled in these kinds of financial tight spots, payday lenders are saviors, not devils. The $5 to $20 fee for an emergency cash loan is a small price to pay. Except that many in Congress don’t think so. They complain that a $10 or $15 fee for a $200 loan paid back in two weeks can have an annual percentage rate interest or up to 400 percent. But an APR is a totally irrelevant statistic on a 10- or 14-day cash advance. The Wall Street Journal has calculated that the APR for a bounced check or a late credit card payment can sometimes exceed 1,300 percent. Are we going to eliminate credit cards too?

One vital on-the-street reality that the consumer advocates and politicians fail to take into account is that payday and online lenders have actually helped low-income areas in an important way: They have largely replaced loan sharks. The interest rate on an unpaid loan to the loan shark isn’t a $10 or $20 fee, but a broken arm.

It also speaks volumes of the motivation of the Fair Credit Act and its supporters that the law would exempt credit unions. These are tax-exempt institutions that are direct competitors to the payday and online short-term lenders –- and they’d like nothing better than to run the competition out of town –- just like McDonald’s would love to shutter Burger King. Credit unions are also major funders of many of the consumer interest groups hammering payday lenders. So it might be too charitable to even say that VFCA supporters are primarily driven here by a misguided concern for the financial well-being of lower-class Americans.

But the motives really don’t matter here — the results do. Run short-term lenders out of business, as some states have already done, and the victims are the people who can no longer use the convenience of these services that were once down the street. There is evidence that many Americans living near a state border, drive out of the state without payday lenders into the states that have them. If Reps. Garcia and Grothman have their way, Americans won’t even have the option of doing that anymore. It’s a law that only the loan shark could love.

SOURCE 

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IN BRIEF

NOTHING TO SEE HERE: Husband of Democrat in impeachment hearings took $700K from firms tied to Ukrainian oligarch "accused of ordering contract killings" (The Daily Wire)

GOOD COP, BAD COP: Georgia governor appoints Kelly Loeffler to Senate in defiance of Trump (National Review)

INTOLERANCE: Army says faith-based group can no longer put Bible verses on dog tags after complaint (Fox News)

HISTORIC CONTRACT: "Generational leap": Navy to pay $22 billion for nine nuclear-powered submarines (The Washington Times)

PUSHBACK: Hospital groups sue to block price-transparency rule (The Wall Street Journal)

POLICY: Hong Kong shows Taiwan what unifying with China really means (Hudson Institute)

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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  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here 

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