U.S. Politics

[Doodoo]

Back to the $15 minimum wage thing
If she was a waitress in a bar/restaurant it must have been in New York as it is the only State with a minimum wage at $15 see attached

http://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and- ... chart.aspx

If this is so then 1 out 50 and you are creating news that The Sky Is Falling

Give us a break out Great One

[Lone Star]

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Biden team mulls Stacey Abrams as VP pick to show he isn't 'just another old white guy'

Source: Washington Examiner

Joe Biden's political advisers are considering failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams as a potential running mate in the 2020 presidential election, a move that would bring much-needed diversity to his campaign.

Biden's team is debating whether to announce Abrams as his choice as he unveils his 2020 White House bid, Axios reported. One person close to the campaign said choosing Abrams, who is black, would help Biden show voters he "isn't just another old white guy."

But not all advisers are on board with the idea, and it’s unclear what Biden thinks.

Biden, 76, could be vulnerable on race once he announces his candidacy. Democratic voters seem hungry for more progressive leaders, and many women and minority candidates have already jumped into the race ahead of him. Those candidates include Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., Cory Booker, D-N.J., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., as well as Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, and tech executive Andrew Yang.

Biden currently leads those candidates by a wide margin before even entering the race. But Biden's past positions on race could get more scrutiny once he announces a run, even though he has tried to play up his civil rights record.

In 1975, for example, Biden said some blacks favored segregation, and said busing is a "rejection of the whole movement of black pride."

And in 1987, Biden told white voters that segregationist George Wallace praised him as "one of the outstanding young politicians of America."

Presidential historian Michael Beschloss noted that picking Abrams as his running mate so early would be unprecedented, as no successful modern nonincumbent presidential candidate has made such a choice ahead of the primary races.

"If Biden were to name his running mate long in advance of the Milwaukee convention, it might be very good politics," Beschloss told Axios. "It also might ultimately provide good government. Voters in the primary process deserve to know as much as possible about the future they are opting for."

Abrams, who lost a tight Georgia gubernatorial race to Republican Brian Kemp in 2018, reportedly met with Biden last week in Washington.

She would have been the nation’s first black female governor if she defeated Kemp.

A two-time loser teams up with a loser for governor.

[Lone Star]

[Doodoo]

Now for the Restaurant /Bar that you say went broke and out of business due to the $15 Minimum wage in New York that
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, worked at absolute horse pucks

A photo is from Nov. 14, 2017. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 28, was then working as a bartender.

Less than a year later, she defeated the likely next Speaker of the House, and will almost certainly be the youngest woman ever elected to Congress

The website for Flats Fix, the Mexican restaurant and bar where she worked, still features her in a promotional photo on their website.
Flat Fix (2 restaurants available in New York) never has gone bankrupt as one of our contributors seems to think and blasts us with FAKE NEWS
The reason she worked in the bar was to support her mother and save their home form being FORECLOSED after her Father passed on.

LS if you more detailed info pls post to help me and others along

[Lone Star]

Longtime journalist Ted Koppel fesses up to what everyone can see. The eneMedia has been playing GET TRUMP from the very beginning.

[Lone Star]

[Lone Star]

Too long for "Sgt. Doodoo of the Udon" to read. Plus, when he's wrong, all of a sudden he doesn't care.

Economic Illiteracy: This week, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez "swung by" to say goodbye to a restaurant where she used to work. What she didn't say is that it is closing because the owners can't afford New York City's soon-to-be $15 minimum wage — the very job-killing policy Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow Democrats want to impose nationwide.

"The restaurant I used to work at is closing its doors," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Monday. "I swung by today to say hi one last time, and kid around with friends like old times."

She was referring to the popular Coffee Shop in Union Square, which was frequented by A-list celebrities and featured on "Sex and the City." Despite its popularity, the Coffee Shop is going out of business. Why?

Co-owner Charles Milite told the New York Post that the main reason was "the minimum wage is going up and we have a huge number of employees."

In New York City, businesses that employ more than 11 people — the Coffee Shop had more than 150 employees — saw the minimum wage jump $2 an hour to $13 this year. And they face another $2 increase starting next year. For businesses like restaurants that hire a lot of unskilled labor, that means a government-imposed 36% increase in labor costs in just two years.

Even a successful business will find it hard to absorb a cost spike of that magnitude.

As a result, Milite's 150 workers will soon see their actual wage drop to zero.

Many others will join them.

The American Action Forum calculates that minimum wage hikes in cities and states around the country this year will kill 261,000 jobs — with most of the lost jobs concentrated in California and New York.

As we noted in this space recently, San Francisco saw far more restaurants close than open after its minimum wage went to $14 last summer. It climbed to $15 this summer.

When TV host Trevor Noah asked Ocasio-Cortez whether a $15 national minimum wage would stifle economic growth, here was her answer:

"Raising the minimum wage to a living wage will expand the economy. It will create wealth in our economy. And it will increase economic activity in this country."

Fact Check Needed
She also claimed that 200 million Americans make less than $20,000 a year, which she said amounts to 40% of the country. And she claimed that Seattle's experience proves her point about the benefits of jacking up the minimum wage.

Somehow, the fact checking police missed those utterly ridiculous claims.

First, the total number of working age people in the country today is 257 million people. And that includes retirees. The idea that 200 million make less than $20,000 is farcical.

In fact, the median household income is around $57,000. That means half of households make more than that.

As to the Seattle experience, the most recent comprehensive analysis shows that the city's minimum wage hike has hurt the very people it was supposed to help. The study found that their net income dropped as employers either eliminated jobs or cut back hours to compensate for the higher wages.

Of course, Ocasio-Cortez is hardly the only one pressing for a $15 national minimum wage. It's become the de facto position of the increasingly radicalized Democratic Party. (In fact, almost none of socialist Ocasio-Cortez's policies differ from that "mainstream" Democratic Party line these days.)

Never mind that at $15 the minimum wage would be far higher than it has ever been since the federal government started imposing it in the 1930. The inflation adjusted peak was in 1968, when it was less than $9 an hour in 2016 dollars.

In that same tweet lamenting the loss of the Coffee Shop, Ocasio-Cortez describes herself as a "a normal, working person."

Maybe she should tell that to the folks now standing in unemployment lines thanks to her "pro-worker" economic policies.

If stupid could fly, Oc-Co Loco would be a jet.

[Doodoo]

Apparently Wikipedia is reporting something in conjunction I will give you that why it closed
As I said before NOT just Wages will close a business Pay particular attention to the last two words in the posting"

"The Coffee Shop (Union Square)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Coffee Shop
Restaurant information
Established
1990
Closed
2018
Food type
Brazilian; Diner food
City
New York City
The Coffee Shop was a restaurant and bar located next to Union Square, New York City. Before The Coffee Shop opened, the building was home to a coffee shop and cafe called Chase.[1] The owners of Chase had placed a large neon sign outside the building reading "Coffee Shop" and the new tenant took its name from the sign and left it attached to the building. The restaurant was known for being popular with celebrities and members of New York's fashion scene.[2]
In mid-2018, the restaurant's owners announced it would close in October of 2018.[3] It is one of several restaurants on Union Square that have closed due to rising rents."

[Lone Star]

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Economic Models Show Trump on Track for Landslide Victory in 2020

"How is he doing it? A strong U.S. economy with low unemployment, rising wages, and low gas prices. Plus, he has the power of incumbency."

President Donald Trump is on track for a landslide victory in 2020, if economic models are to be believed. According to a new report from Politico, a number of economic factors are boosting Trump’s reelection chances.

The models that are predicting a Trump win in 2020 have “strong track records of picking presidential winners and losers,” according to the report. Here’s why they say he’s in a strong position:

Credit a strong U.S. economy featuring low unemployment, rising wages and low gas prices — along with the historic advantage held by incumbent presidents.

Conversely, should the economy nosedive before the election, the president could find himself in a tougher position for his reelection. Trump’s generally low approval rating also puts him at risk.

But if the economy is the driving factor in the 2020 campaign, the president is in strong position.

“The economy is just so damn strong right now and by all historic precedent the incumbent should run away with it,” one predictive analyst told Politico. “I just don’t see how the blue wall could resist all that.”

His model shows Trump winning the electoral college with 294 votes.

Earlier this month, Gallup found 56 percent of voters said they approved of Trump’s handling of the economy, a record high for the president. Unemployment dropped to 3.8 percent in February and wage growth hit a 10-year high.

Like with any other election, when things are going well, or the opposing choice of policies isn't so great, the incumbent has the advantage.

As much of a threat that many Conservatives saw in Obama, McCain was a pathetic candidate running a pathetic campaign. Palin as a running mate made it respectable for him. Without her, Obama would have rivaled Reagan's 1984 Electoral College victory. As dissatisfied as Conservatives were with Obama in 2012, McRomney was another pathetic candidate running another pathetic campaign. Republicans stayed home and Obama won re-election.

One of the things that I continue to hear from Republicans and Conservatives is that McCain and McRomney didn't fight for the job, didn't fight for themselves and certainly didn't fight for us. Weak, squishy GOPe Mush. That's why they lost. Voters stayed home.

Something lost on many is the fact that more people voted for Trump in the primaries than any other Republican candidate in history. People were fed up then. They're still fed up.

[Doodoo]

and again
As for the impending closure, Milite cites rising rents and costs of doing business. “The times have changed in our industry,” Milite told the Post. “The rents are very high and now the minimum wage is going up and we have a huge number of employees.” The Post also reports that Milite is breaking the news to the restaurant’s 150 employees today.

Not just wages oh Great One.
Businesses do not fail, engines do not fail, countries do not fail, marriages do not fail because of ONE THING

[Lone Star]

. . .

As I said before NOT just Wages will close a business

. . .

You can keep saying it, and it will still be true in general terms. No one is claiming otherwise. Straw man argument. You can play "what if" until the water buffaloes come back home.

The owner is quoted as saying that forced rising wages were the main reason. Rent with a landlord can be negotiated and can many times be worked around to salvage the business and employees. Government-imposed wages cannot be negotiated. The added intrusion by the government to force a private business to pay a certain wage -- that is customarily supplemented with tips in a very trendy and up-scale location, but can no longer be included as wages -- has proven to be a death sentence.

More proof that Democrats are the undisputed Champions of Unintended Consequences.

You can keep repeating your straw man argument, but the facts are clear. I know. You don't care. Again.

[Lone Star]

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SPECIAL REPORT: Trump's trade war puts China's once vaunted economy in real peril

Source: Washington Times

BEIJING — Since the 2009 global financial crisis hobbled most of the world’s developed countries, China has been the economic locomotive pulling the rest of the world behind it.

As the economies of Europe, the U.S. and Japan stagnated, China went from strength to strength. It surpassed its Asian rival to the east a decade ago in total gross domestic product to become the world’s second-largest economy, with its sights trained squarely on the United States.

Indeed, judged by what economists call purchasing power parity — the idea that services such as a haircut are valued equally — Beijing already can claim the title of the world’s largest economy.

But the sputtering Chinese-driven train appears to have pulled into the station. Growth targets have been slashed. Exports have fallen. Debt levels are rising. Some economists even say China is in a recession.

“It is true that China’s economy has encountered new, downward pressure,” Chinese Premier Li Keqiang told reporters last week at the conclusion of the annual National People’s Congress gathering in Beijing. Faced with growing pressures within and without, the government said it plans to create more than 11 million jobs this year to avoid a politically disruptive slowdown.

Mr. Li used unusually stark language to describe the challenges China faces. He said government planners at all levels need to “turn the blade inward” and “cut our own wrists” to carry out the sacrifices needed to keep the economy afloat.

In the long-run competition between the U.S. and China for economic supremacy, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said he is betting on the U.S.

“It isn’t like the Chinese have a free ride for the next 20 or 30 years,” Mr. Dimon said in an interview this week with CNN.

A recent visit to China reveals how a confluence of factors — not least the Trump administration’s trade war and demands for deep changes in the way the Asian giant does business — has put the nation’s economic model, so successful over the past 40 years, in real peril.

The ‘world’s factory’

In 1978, Deng Xiaoping and his fellow reformers in the ruling Communist Party inherited an economy — and society — all but ruined by Mao Zedong.

In the 19th century, China was one of the world’s richest, most productive economies. But by the end of Mao’s disastrous 27-year reign of collectivization, state command and brutality, the country was deeply impoverished, barely able to feed itself. During the grim, ironically named Great Leap Forward, a period of mass collectivization that lasted from 1958 to 1962, tens of millions died of starvation as China’s agricultural sector was devastated.

Deng commenced China’s “reform and opening-up,” a shift still widely celebrated in China — a bright red sign flying in Tiananmen Square marks the recent 40th anniversary of the inauguration of the policy. While retaining strict political control, Deng legalized entrepreneurship and liberated the peasants who had been forced onto Mao’s collectivized farms. Perhaps most crucial, Deng permitted foreign investment, though only as part of joint ventures with Chinese companies.

It was that last decision that many credit with providing the underpinning for the wildly successful Chinese development model of the subsequent four decades. Foreign investors found China to be an enticing manufacturing base, boasting a massive workforce willing to work for pennies on the dollar.

Factory investment surged along with exports. Chinese exports, produced for a fraction of the cost of goods produced in other countries, were able to compete on price if not quality. China’s 2001 entry into the World Trade Organization only served to further China’s emergence as the world’s factory floor, signaling profound disruptions in the economies across Asia, Europe and the Americas.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government recirculated the cash it vacuumed up from overseas exports into investment. During the 2009 financial crisis, Beijing’s leaders had the firepower to unleash a massive construction boom that kept the economy humming even as much of the world fell into a recession.

The United States, as the world’s largest consuming nation, has been a particularly attractive target for Chinese exports. In 2006, the U.S. imported $343 billion worth of Chinese products. By 2017, that number had leaped to $522.9 billion, according to U.S. government data.

China was steadily moving up the supply chain.

No longer just the world leader in producing cheap plastic junk, China had top exports in 2017 that included mobile phones, computers, computer parts and integrated circuits. U.S. exports to China that year amounted to a mere $187.5 billion, resulting in a $335.4 billion trade gap.

It is this severe trade imbalance that President Trump has sought to redress by imposing tariffs on scores of Chinese exports — so far targeting about $250 billion worth of Chinese imports — hitting various sectors such as solar panels, washing machines and dental fillings.

The tariffs serve two purposes for the economic nationalist president. For one, they encourage manufacturers to set up shop in the U.S. by undercutting China’s competitive cost advantage.

U.S. officials say the tariffs have been useful for pressuring Beijing to change its behavior on other fronts, including North Korea, intellectual property theft, forced technology transfers and myriad other restrictions on foreign companies operating in China. Chinese companies operating in the U.S. market are not subject to such restrictions.

Despite widespread skepticism among economists that Mr. Trump’s tariffs are simply taxes on American consumers, there is strong evidence that they have had some success in hobbling the Chinese export-oriented development model.

Gordon Chang, a longtime China watcher and author of “The Coming Collapse of China,” said Chinese exporters are absorbing more than 80 percent of the costs of U.S. tariffs related to intellectual property theft and forced technology transfers.

“It makes sense that desperate Chinese exporters are willing to pay a good portion of the tariffs to preserve market share,” Mr. Chang said.

But even as Chinese economic officials try to stave off the effects of the U.S. tariffs, exports have swooned. Chinese exports to the United States were down 14.1 percent in the first two months of 2019 compared with the previous year. The falloff has dragged down the Chinese economy as a whole.

The trade dispute has “negatively impacted consumer confidence,” said Jake Parker of the U.S.-China Business Council in Beijing.

Target shooting

For years, the Chinese economy was essentially the world’s most successful target shooter.

Each year, the central government would set a “target” for GDP growth. And each year, like clockwork, the economy would hit the bull’s-eye — or so the official data said. In the heady three decades after Deng’s reforms took hold, GDP growth routinely topped 10 percent. Even since 2010, the target range was still a lofty 8 percent while U.S. annual growth never topped 3 percent.

But this year, the government has set a target of just 6 percent GDP growth, which is evidence of a stark slowdown.

Even the 6 percent growth may be a mirage, whatever the official numbers show.

Tony Nash, managing partner at economic forecasting firm Complete Intelligence with deep experience in China, called the Beijing government’s official figures “a Potemkin village, simply presented for the impression.”

“This is done because the expectations of 8 percent growth, for example, was set more than a decade ago in order to create enough jobs for the workforce,” he said. “That’s a high bar to achieve, but it’s also a higher expectation to overcome.”

Michael Pettis, a finance professor at Peking University, said he estimated that Chinese real GDP growth is only about half of what official figures indicate.

In Baoding, an industrial city about 100 miles southwest of Beijing, an industrial park manufacturing solar panels continues to operate despite the financial woes of Yingli Solar, one of the world’s biggest panel manufacturers. (Solar panels are targeted by Mr. Trump’s tariffs.)

In the midst of a major debt restructuring, Yingli is likely now serving only the domestic market and thus would be hit by any reduction in domestic investment. The company declined to speak to the media.

Still, like many other Chinese cities, Baoding has the appearance of a boomtown regardless of the underlying health of the economy. Cranes are everywhere. Glistening new malls stacked with Western stores are packed with shoppers.

Foreign firms continue to chase China’s vast consumer market. Pan Chenyin, China manager at Fireworks, a digital technology company that helps promote consumer brands, observed that “with the growing of the middle class, domestic consumer consumption is taking up a considerable amount of China’s economy.”

Despite the U.S.-China trade hostilities, he said, “I feel the spirit is high.”

Mr. Pan reports that leading consumer brands continue to increase their spending in China and that his firm is seeing 20 percent year-on-year growth — even in the midst of the slowdown.

Consumer focus

That is encouraging news for China’s economic planners, who are hoping to use the export slowdown to achieve their long-held goal of turning the country into more of a consumer-driven economy that is less dependent on exports and investments. Particularly with exports in trouble, China is “dependent on increasing investment for growth,” Peking University’s Mr. Pettis said. But the heavy influence of the government on the economy continues to hold China back.

“Because so much of that investment is ‘wasted’ on nonproductive or unnecessary infrastructure and real estate projects, and on excess capacity … debt is rising so much faster than their ability to service the debt.”

To get consumers to buy more, the Chinese government recently cut the national sales tax. But there is much more it could do, Mr. Pettis said. He suggested that local governments “lower fees for residents, for example car licenses, electricity, water … or lower costs for public transportation” to spur consumption.

One looming thundercloud is the possibility that Mr. Trump will increase tariffs. That would hurt exports further and depress consumer confidence.

Heated trade talks between China and the United States continue. Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer reportedly are planning another trip to Beijing next week. Mr. Trump has already delayed further tariffs once, but there is a clear concern that the mercurial American president is growing impatient.

Not long ago, there was a sense that Mr. Trump, operating in a slapdash manner and desperate for any form of “win,” would capitulate on the thorniest issues, including technology transfers and intellectual property protections. One official, who spoke in an unofficial and anonymous capacity, was gleeful in predicting that China would stare down the U.S. president and win.

But Mr. Trump’s abrupt exit from the Hanoi talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has shaken that confidence and demonstrated, in fact, that Mr. Trump is willing to walk away from a deal that doesn’t suit him.

Still, the Chinese are putting on a brave face and predicting that the two sides will eventually cut a deal. At the same time, they are sounding a more conciliatory note than they did before the Hanoi summit.

Shen Dingli, a professor at Fudan University, is typically a reliable voice of the Chinese establishment and is known for his hawkish take on Chinese economic relations with Washington. These days, Mr. Shen sounds downright dovish. He is forecasting a “win-win, no-losers outcome” to Mr. Trump’s trade offensive.

“The U.S. will get more and better access to Chinese markets with more equal treatment of competition of export as well as investment,” he said, while “China will be able to maintain its current exports and even increase its exports.”

So-called alarmist experts still wrong.

[Lone Star]

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A Common Refrain in US and Brazil: ‘We Don’t Want Socialism Anymore’

Source: Epoch Times

WASHINGTON—Brazil and the United States have formed a new relationship based on their presidents’ shared rejection of socialism.

Brazil’s new President Jair Bolsonaro chose to make his first bilateral overseas trip to Washington, where he sealed a “promising alliance” between his country and the United States.

In a joint press conference in the White House Rose Garden, Bolsonaro said socialist regimes had “nearly conquered power throughout Latin America in recent times.” But, by democratic means, he said Brazilians were able to rid themselves from socialists, referring to the country’s once-dominant Workers’ Party and former Presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff.

Bolsonaro echoed President Donald Trump’s views on socialism, saying that Brazil and the United States stand side by side to protect “liberties,” and respect “traditional family lifestyles,” and “God, our Creator.” He added that they would stand against the “gender ideology or the politically correct attitudes and against ‘fake news.’”

Bolsonaro, who’s been described as the “Trump of the Tropics,” won the election last October by a wide margin and became president of Brazil on Jan. 1.

Before his election, he served 17 years in the army and nearly three decades in Brazil’s Congress. Known for his offensive remarks and tweets, Bolsonaro branded himself as a “clean” candidate amid a sea of corrupt politicians.

He has often expressed his admiration for the United States and Trump. During his visit, he said he was pleased to be in Washington, particularly after decades of “anti-U.S.” leaders in his country.

“The United States changed in 2017, and Brazil has just started to change now, in 2019,” he said. “We want to have a great America, yes, and we also want to have a great Brazil.”

‘A Miracle’
In an interview with The Epoch Times on March 16, Eduardo Bolsonaro, a congressman in Brazil and the son of Brazil’s president, called the election of his father “a miracle.”

“It says a lot about the moment that we are living in,” he said, adding that there is growing support for like-minded counterparts.

Bolsonaro’s victory signaled a conservative turn for Latin America. His election came on the heels of the rise of conservative governments in Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, and Argentina.

Just six years ago, there was no conservative party in Brazil and it was hard for his father to find a party that would back his presidency, Eduardo Bolsonaro said.

“And now we are the biggest party of the Congress,” he said, calling it a “dream.”

“So it’s not a movement about the extreme right, as the press usually sees that we are. It’s something that is natural and is a huge message that ‘we don’t want socialism anymore.’”

‘Twilight Hour of Socialism’
Trump said the United States and Brazil were united in their opposition to the socialist dictators of Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua.

Since taking office in 2017, Trump has lambasted socialism and communism on the world stage. During his speech in the Rose Garden, Trump blamed socialism for the economic collapse of Venezuela, once one of the region’s richest countries. He said he hoped that the “twilight hour of socialism” had arrived in the Americas.

“The last thing we want in the United States is socialism,” Trump said, in a reference to growing support for far-left socialist ideas among Democrats and his 2020 election challengers like the Green New Deal and Medicare for all.

According to the Heritage Foundation, socialism is considered as a political alternative taken seriously by millennials in the United States. And the Great Recession of 2008 accelerated the shift toward socialism.

“It tore a huge hole in the American people’s belief in capitalism as the way to a better life and sent them looking for alternatives,” Lee Edwards, historian of American conservatism at the Heritage Foundation, wrote in a report.

Edwards noted that most young people, however, could not correctly define socialism in a survey despite their favorable view of socialism.

Replacing U.S. policies with highly socialist policies such as Venezuela’s would result in a 40 percent decline in real GDP in the long run and cost about $24,000 per year for the average person, according to a new report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers published this week.

“Socialism is like a school. People like it,” Eduardo Bolsonaro said, adding, however, that it comes with a high price.

“It was during the term of Dilma Rousseff. And we faced 14 million unemployed. It was really hard. It was—I think—the worst economic crisis, ever in Brazil.”

Ernesto Araujo, Brazil’s minister of foreign affairs, praised Trump for opening new avenues for the conservative movement in the world.

According to him, the “enemy of the West is not Russia or China, nor is it an enemy state, but indeed primarily an enemy within, abandoning one’s own identity.”

Trump’s “movement here will win by bringing people’s perception back to where they should be,” he told The Epoch Times on March 19. He stressed the importance of reclaiming the soul of a nation and conservative values, which are essential for a strong liberal economy.

Free Enterprise and Liberty is contagious.

[Lone Star]

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Democrat pollster and Clinton confidante, James Carville.

If James Carville Is Right, Trump Has Massive Lead over Any Dem. Opponent

During Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 run for president, Democratic campaign strategist James Carville coined the term, “It’s the economy, stupid” — and if that philosophy is true, President Donald Trump has 2020 in the bag.

Carville’s phrase meant that the state of the economy would determine how Americans would cast their ballots.

Ultimately, the results of the 1992 presidential election aligned with his thinking; then-President George H. W. Bush, whose presidency was plagued with a recession, lost to Clinton.

It follows that “It’s the economy, stupid” means a president with a strong economy should have a much easier time winning re-election.

That’s great news for Trump because a new CNN poll found that 71 percent of those surveyed believe the nation’s economy is in good shape.

It’s the highest rating the economy has received in the poll since February 2001, months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

It’s important to note how tremendous the pre-9/11 economy was, with a massive tech bubble fueled by eager investors hoping to make massive returns.

If Trump’s economy feels like the pre-9/11 economy, that’s a huge achievement that is sure to be a major factor in the 2020 campaign.

The strength of the economy will help Trump make a powerful case against the socialist policies being proposed by Democratic presidential candidates such as Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

But Trump and his supporters shouldn’t get complacent.

Democrats undoubtedly will try to diminish the president’s achievement by attributing the successful economy to other factors.

Also, Trump’s approval rating is at 42 percent. While former President Ronald Reagan and Clinton had similarly poor ratings before they won re-election, it will take work.

The president also has bad ratings when it comes to how he is handling the immigration crisis, with 58 percent disapproval, and the budget, with 56 percent disapproval.

That’s likely because the 35-day government shutdown over border wall funding was a failure, with Congress barely appropriating any money for the wall.

Trump definitely has issues that he will need to address in 2020, but if the economy is as important as Carville theorized, he might have an easier time winning re-election than his approval ratings would suggest.

[Lone Star]

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Democrats, more and more, are a CONTRAST to America

More from Victor Davis Hanson.

Trump can be uncouth and crass. But he has shown an empathy for the hollowed-out interior, lacking from prior Republican and Democratic candidates. His populist agenda explains why millions of once traditional Democratic voters defected in 2016 to him -- and may well again in 2020. Some polls counterintuitively suggest that Trump may well win more minority voters than prior Republican presidential candidates.

Trump may come across as callous to some, but to others at least genuine. He does not modulate his accent to fit regional crowds, as did Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. He does not adopt particular outfits at state fairs or visit bowling allies to seek authenticity. Like him or not, his Queens accent, formal attire, odd tan, and wild hair remain the same wherever he goes and speaks. Voters respect that he is at least unadulterated in a way untrue of most politicians. Big Macs convey earthiness in a way arugula does not.

Hillary Clinton phony Black accent in speech at Church. Sadly hilarious ... before she lost in 2008.



The Christian-hating LIBs quoting the Bible are even more hilarious.

[Doodoo]

Ah come on Oh Great and Almighty One
Who said I don't care??? Oh ya it was me

I know you keep mentioning Straw soemthing or other but soon I can tell you that it isnt true any more that I dont care

I really couldn't give a pile of horse manure about drivel that comes from certain people. Its odd that they will produce a report lets call it and with a flick of the key pad it just aint true what have come out with. Time and time again the written word really aint the whole written word and there is always that one piece that is missing a word, a date etc that changes the whole story

But they hide behind big words or sayings , strawman, red herring, quotes rather than saying oops I screwed up

As I said before continue with your stuff as it passes the days away for me in research
But I still think you need a rest so you can catch up on your picture drawing with the etchosketch

Have a good weekend but I know tomorrow you will be back

[jackspratt]

All signs are that the great negotiator's efforts are heading nowhere.

North Korea abruptly withdraws staff from Kaesong liaison office with South Korea

North Korea has abruptly withdrawn its staff from a liaison office with South Korea, a development that is likely to put a damper on ties between the countries and further complicate global diplomacy on North Korea's nuclear program.
Key points:

The North Korean action came a week after Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui threatened to pull out of nuclear negotiations with the United States, citing a lack of US steps to match disarmament measures it took last year.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-22/ ... e/10932066

STEADY LOSING?

[minimiglia]

He is doing a bloody excellent job

[Lone Star]

Mueller has submitted his report to Attorney General Bill Barr. AG Barr determines what is included in his public summary.

The Cheerleaders for Failure must be warned.

Grand Jury investigations and Special Counsel investigations are not only secret to prosecute those of criminal behavior, but they are also secret to protect the INNOCENT. The report from the Special Counsel will not contain any "what ifs" or innuendo. People who were investigated, but not charged, will NOT be named in any way.

In the words of Rod Rosenstein, USDOJ:

Punishing wrongdoers through judicial proceedings is only one part of the Department’s mission. We also have a duty to prevent the disclosure of information that would unfairly tarnish people who are not charged with crimes.

Democrats, LIBs and brigadiers will be very unhappy and an emotional frenzy is expected if the investigation didn't GET TRUMP.

*** You Have Been Warned ***

[Lone Star]

If you reject their claims, they will come after you.