The Four

Much is made of the racism supposedly imbued in President Donald Trump’s recent tweets (hint: there isn’t any).

But much is ignored of the racism inherent in the words of four freshman Congresswomen: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D, NY), Rashida Tlaib (D, MI), Ilhan Omar (D, MN), and Ayanna Pressley (D, MA). Here’s Tlaib, providing a canonical example of those four’s blatant racism on last Tuesday’s CBS This Morning. In speaking of their relationship with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Tlaib said

Acknowledge the fact that we are women of color, so when you do single us out, be aware of that and what you’re doing, especially because some of us are getting death threats, because some of us are being singled out because of our backgrounds, because of our experiences and so forth.

Because the first thing of importance in their minds is their skin color.  Not that they’re Congresspersons who happen to be women and who happen to have brown or black skin.  Not that they represent a constituency in their home districts.  Not even that they’re Americans.

No. What’s most important to them, all that’s important to them, is that they’ve black or brown.

It’s hard to get more racist than that.

That business about death threats, being singled out because of their backgrounds, “and so forth?” It’s been Republicans and Conservatives against whom such threats and singling-out have actually been carried out.  It’s been Conservatives who’ve been viciously attacked, for instance in Portland where the Progressive-Democrat mayor instructed his police force to stand down while the attacks went in—including during the assault on a Conservative journalist.  It’s been a Republican Congressman who was shot and seriously wounded, along with several others, for no other reason than that he, and they, are Republicans and Conservatives.

These four Congresswomen should be ashamed of their racism.  But they don’t have the grace, even for embarrassment.

Campaign Spending vs Intake

Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidates are spending more money than they’re collecting through campaign donations.

Eleven of the Democratic presidential campaigns, including former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper spent more than they raised in the most recent three months.

How quickly the 24 Democratic contenders are burning through cash seven months ahead of the first primary caucuses and elections is as important as how much they are bringing in.

Of course, they have to in order to stay/get competitive in the race.

This is a microcosm of what we can expect from a Progressive-Democratic Party-dominated Congress and White House.

Because, of course there’s always a “reason” for the Federal government to spend more than its revenue collections.

Racially Charged Tweets

That’s how many describe some tweets that President Donald Trump sent out a few days ago, when he suggested that some Congresswomen “go back” to their troubled origins.

Except that that’s not all that he said.  Here’s the middle tweet of the three (the other two are at the link):

 ….and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019

Read that carefully.  Trump has suggested that the Congresswomen go and help solve the problems—and then return and instruct us in how to solve ours.

Being willing to accept guidance from minority women, however bluntly he put it, is hardly racist.

Except in the fetid imaginations of Progressive-Democratic Congressmen and -women and the NLMSM that shills for them.

Oh, regarding that “go back where you came from” bit: where I grew up, in the Midwest, that phrase certainly did have a dog whistle meaning.  But that was just one of the phrase’s meanings; it also had a much more innocuous, if stern, meaning.  It simply suggested that if a transplant from New York, or California, or “the South,” or Texas, or… didn’t like it here, if they insisted on demanding changes to the way us locals did things so that we better matched where they’d just come from, they should go back to New York, or California, or “the South,” or Texas, or…. Lately, too, it was New York transplants in Florida and New Mexico who were especially obnoxious about the changes they demanded.

Such transplants were so advised without any thought of their color or ethnicity–or religion or gender.

It’s illustrative that Progressive-Democrats and their press shills have fixed on the one, to the exclusion of the other.

Much Ado

…is being made about the People’s Republic of China’s slowing economic growth rate.

The Chinese economy has suffered a loss of momentum in the second quarter, with the GDP falling to 6.2% from a 6.4% expansion in the first three months of the year, figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Monday.

This is the slowest growth rate in 27 years, goes the alarm.  That’s supposed to apply pressure to the PRC to start negotiating seriously with the US on trade.  In truth, it does add some pressure, but it’s necessary to keep in mind a couple of other things, too.

One is that slowing growth is, still, growth, and a 6.2% growth rate still is one of the highest economic growth rates in the world, albeit that rate comes against one of the lowest baselines in the world.

Another is that the PRC’s government, led by President Xi Jinping and his Communist Party of China henchmen, is willing to inflict more pain and economic (read: standard of living) damage on its people than are most Western governments on theirs.

The tariff pressure being applied to the PRC is both necessary and having serious effects. Producers are moving their sourcing from the PRC and shifting it to other nations around the Pacific, some to the US, others to Vietnam, Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and so on.  And that slowdown in growth rate is real and a continuing trend.

It’s just that the struggle to get the PRC to deal honestly with the rest of us in trade, intellectual property, and technology will not be over quickly, nor will any of us enjoy it.  But we must stay the course.

Another Venue for Private Education

In a piece about Amazon.com’s decision to drop $700 million on retraining/educating its work force, The Wall Street Journal‘s editors closed with this forlorn hope:

And dare to dream, maybe colleges will cut their prices to compete with Amazon U.

Sad to say, it is a dream: colleges have no need to compete, and so have no interest in cutting prices, as long as the Federal and State governments keep throwing money at them.

Watch, instead, the hue and cry from the Left to develop in opposition to Amazon’s (and others—dare I hope?) schooling, just as they actively oppose existing competition in K-12, the charter and voucher schools that put to shame the public schools.