Archive for the ‘Elitists/Elitism’ Category

James Freeman’s WSJ article has a wonderful tongue-in-cheek quality to it.

Freeman’s article starts by saying “What would we do without experts? As U.S. workers continue to enjoy a vibrant job market, they should spare a thought for laborers in one category of professional services who remain mired in a multi-year slump. Established manufacturers of Keynesian economic forecasts have entered a prolonged period of secular stagnation. Some may even wonder if they can ever break out of a ‘new normal’ of declining prestige.”

Freeman’s article continues, saying “At the New York Times recently, economist Paul Krugman valiantly attempted to overcome his history of underrating American potential by making another call on tax policy and the macroeconomy. On April 8, Mr. Krugman wrote about one of President Trump’s signature policy achievements: ‘…his one major legislative success, the 2017 tax cut — which he predicted would be ‘rocket fuel’ for the economy, has turned out to be a big fizzle, economically and, especially, politically. It’s true that U.S. economic growth got a bump for two quarters last year, and Trumpists are still pretending to believe that we’ll have great growth for a decade. But at this point last year’s growth is looking like a brief and rapidly fading sugar high.”

On the old show Hee-Haw, one of their famous skits showed 4 men singing:

The famous line was “If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.” I’d say that’s pretty fitting for the ‘slump’ that Mr. Krugman is in. He once was a world-renowned economist. These days, he’s just a partisan hack for the NYTimes. It isn’t limited to Krugman, though:

A former Clinton and Obama economic adviser, Mr. Summers wrote in May of 2017 in the Washington Post:
Details of President Trump’s first budget have now been released. Much can and will be said about the dire social consequences of what is in it and the ludicrously optimistic economic assumptions it embodies. My observation is that there appears to be a logical error of the kind that would justify failing a student in an introductory economics course.

Apparently, the budget forecasts that U.S. economic growth will rise to 3.0 percent because of the administration’s policies, largely its tax cuts and perhaps also its regulatory policies. Fair enough if you believe in tooth fairies and ludicrous supply-side economics.

These days, Summers and Krugman are nothing more than elitist economic snobs sneering down their noses at the notion that supply-side economics is the stuff that only tooth fairies peddled. Forgive me if I ignore their snobbishness.

Finally, there’s this:

Harriet Torry reports in the Journal on the optimism among corporate executives, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon:

“People are going back to the workforce. Companies have plenty of capital,” he said, adding that “business confidence and consumer confidence are both rather high…it could go on for years. There’s no law that says it has to stop,” he said.

At some point, it will stop. It’s just that there’s no guarantee it’ll be anytime soon.

Earlier this week, I published this post with a photoshopped picture of Angie Craig saying something embarrassing. A quick Google search verified that the statement was made by Ms. Craig during the 2016 campaign. The NRCC published the specific quote in this blog post. The key lines state “Jeff Erdmann thinks he knows why Craig lost. He was a volunteer for her in 2016, phone banking and going door to door. That spring, a voter asked him a question about Craig’s position on an issue that he couldn’t answer, so when Craig held a Q&A with the volunteers, he asked her if it was OK to direct voters to the website for an answer. ‘No, not really,’ Erdmann recalled her saying, ‘because we haven’t developed our website yet because we don’t want the Republicans to know where we stand, and we haven’t seen end-of-summer polling yet.'”

That isn’t all, though, that Erdmann heard. Check this out:

Later, he said, he was phone banking and asked a supervisor what message he should tailor to the rural part of the district, since the script seemed aimed at city dwellers. “Just tell them the trailer-court story, they’re not big thinkers out there,” he said he was told, referring to Craig’s childhood in a trailer home.

It’s pretty apparent that the Craig campaign doesn’t have much respect for their voters, especially their rural voters. Equally apparent is that Ms. Craig’s opinions aren’t informed by her would-be constituents but by polling. Here’s the photoshopped photo of Craig with her inopportune (but revealing) statements:

The line at the bottom of the page is the most important line:

Remember the last time Jason Lewis had to wait to determine his opinion? No, me either.

In the time of Trump, people want politicians that speak clearly and who provide solutions to important issues. Jason Lewis fits that description perfectly. After he’s re-elected, his authority will grow, which will benefit his constituents and the nation.

After she’s defeated, Angie Craig will return to her cushy office.

One of the things that people don’t get about the Trump phenomenon is why his followers are steadfastly loyal. The answer is simple. They’ve been complaining for years, decades sometimes, without getting the politicians’ attention. The thing that Trump’s done that’s built his unwavering support is that he’s listened.

Here in St. Cloud, the 5 ostriches aren’t interested in listening. Because they haven’t been interested in listening, a small but principled group of determined citizens is about to get the ostriches’ attention. Their petition states “A Citizen Committee for an Initiative and Referendum Regarding a Call for Action by Elected O?cials Representing the City of St. Cloud Presented to the City Clerk on May 14th, 2018 Under the provisions of the Home Rule Charter of the City of St. Cloud, MN under the Comprehensive Revision Adopted March 18, 1952 and it’s Amendments Through the Period of Time Ending July 10th, 2017 (Home Rule Charter), we the undersigned residents and registered voters in the City of St. Cloud acting as a Citizen Committee, as de?ne by the Home Rule Charter, are exercising the Powers Reserved by the People under Article V of the Home Rule Charter, do hereby petition for a proposed resolution of the City of St. Cloud addressing actions to be taken by elected o?cials of the City of St. Cloud regarding the federal government’s Refugee Act of 1980 and it’s amendments. Said resolution shall be placed before the voters of the City of St. Cloud at the next General Election. (Provisions of the Home Rule Charter are o?ered for information purposes following the signatures of the Citizen Committee).”

The citizens of St. Cloud have said that they’re worried about the expenses attached to the Refugee Act of 1980. The ostriches have declared that the city can handle the additional burdens or they’ve denied outright that the financial burdens exist. The citizens that signed this notice of petition steadfastly disagree with the ostriches, aka Jeff Goerger, Dave Masters, John Libert, Carol Lewis and Steve Laraway.

At tonight’s city council meeting, Councilman Johnson will speak to this issue at tonight’s City Council meeting. Expect lots of eyerolls and looks of total disinterest on the ostriches’ faces. When they decide to ignore something, they set their heart, mind, soul and strength to it.

One thing that shines through in this article is there’s really 2 Democratic Parties. There’s the bi-coastal Democratic party that’s filled with elitists and the Rust Belt/Great Lakes Democratic Party that actually knows how to talk to blue collar workers and people of faith. What they have in common is anyone’s guess. (I suspect very little.)

The first paragraph of the article says “Steering his white Dodge Ram while wearing a tan knit cap, a drab green Carhartt coat and a smear of brown livestock feed on his cheek, Terry Goodin jounced over frozen-hard mud toward his 100 head of beef cattle. ‘Make sure they’re all four legs down and not four legs up, in this kind of weather,’ he told me in his southern Indiana drawl. The temperature overnight had dipped toward zero. Now, midmorning, it stood at 16 degrees. On the rear of his old pickup truck was a ‘Farmers For Goodin’ bumper sticker, and rattling around his head were thoughts of what he was going to say the following week in a starkly different setting—up in Indianapolis, at the regal limestone capitol building, in his introductory speech as the leader of his caucus in the state legislature.”

It continues, saying “I am a Democrat. I am a Democrat from rural Indiana.”

That Goodin, 51, who has held political office for more than 17 years, felt the need to say this out loud speaks to the divisions bedeviling the Democratic Party. A father of three and the superintendent of a 500-student school district, Goodin is the last Democrat in Indiana who represents an entirely rural area. A member of the Indiana Farm Bureau, the National Rifle Association and the Austin Church of God, he’s an anti-abortion, pro-gun, self-described “Bible-poundin’, aisle-runnin'” Pentecostal. This unusual profile for a Democrat makes him a species nearing extinction within the national party, but it’s also the very reason he keeps getting reelected here. This paradox is why he is prominently featured in a report set to be made public Thursday by the leadership PAC of third-term congresswoman Cheri Bustos.

In the old days before I could vote, Goodin would’ve been considered a conservative Democrat. These days, conservative Democrats are almost extinct. Most of them migrated during the 1980s to the Republican Party.

There’s little question that Nancy Pelosi wouldn’t welcome heartland Democrats to DC. She’d definitely welcome them. Likewise, there’s no doubt that she’d ignore them once they got there. Ms. Pelosi wants Democrats of all stripes in DC because that’d increase the odds of her becoming Speaker again. There’s little question, though, whether their agenda items would see the light of day. I’m betting they wouldn’t.

This is harsh reality:

The facts are harsh. “The number of Democrats holding office across the nation is at its lowest point since the 1920s and the decline has been especially severe in rural America,” Bustos writes in the report. In 2009, the report notes, Democrats held 57 percent of the heartland’s seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Now: 39 percent. In 2008, Barack Obama won seven of the eight heartland states. In 2012, he won six. In 2016? Trump won six. There are 737 counties in the Midwest—Trump won all but 63 of them.

What’s needed for the Democratic Party is for them to dump the elitists/socialists/environmentalists in their party. The elitists are hated because they’re snobby. The socialists aren’t trusted on the economy. Environmentalists are viewed as hating blue collar workers.

A political party that’s populated with snobbish people, that isn’t trusted on the economy and that hates blue collar workers has limited appeal. That’s where the Democratic Party is at in 2018.

The Democrats’ battle cry on all things migration and immigration has been ‘that’s not who we are’. Democrats don’t tell taxpayers whether we can afford to accept more refugees. They simply tell us that it’s imperative that the U.S. accept tens of thousands of refugees each year.

When President Trump said halt!, Lutheran Social Services screamed. As I’ve written about before refugee resettlement is how they make the money that pays their executives’ lucrative salaries. At the time, I wrote “LSS gets paid $1,000 for each refugee it finds a home for. This year, LSS will get $225,000 to resettle refugees. That doesn’t sound like humanitarian work. That’s what a lucrative racket sounds like.”

Public servants like St. Cloud City Councilman Jeff Johnson has tried to find out how much refugee resettlement costs St. Cloud taxpayers. For being fiscally responsible, the special interests have criticized him constantly. Thankfully, Johnson is about to get some answers:

Did you know that welfare spending in Minnesota is going up about 20 percent or more a year? K-12 budgets are ballooning, as well. All we have is a promise that the Office of Legislative Auditor is going to tell lawmakers in 2018 what costs are currently tracked, so lawmakers can presumably order HHS and other state agencies to begin tracking the costs.

Think of that last statement. At present, lawmakers haven’t told state agencies to track the costs of refugee resettlement. Here’s why that’s important:

Think about this a minute. From 2002-2014, there’s been an outmigration of Minnesota-born people. While that’s been happening, there’s been a strong inmigration of people born in other countries, sometimes hitting 15,000 international-born refugees.

Further, let’s remember that Minnesota’s welfare spending is increasing by 20% per year. What math-minded person thinks that’s sustainable? It’s one thing if a minor department’s budget increases by 10-15% per biennium for a couple biennia. That’s something that we can probably absorb without running a major deficit. The HHS budget is the second biggest line item in the state budget, behind only K-12 Education. Astronomical increases to the second-biggest department in Minnesota’s budget isn’t sustainable.

Our reigning elite, including so-called feminists, have ignored the pleas and shouted down the concerns of Americans who dare to wonder out loud how to deal with incoming cultures that openly reject religious tolerance, profess an allegiance to Sharia law, practice polygamy and mutilate their daughters. These are not the loser racists who show up in ridiculous man-boy outfits to rant and rave at alt-right gatherings. These are good, decent Americans who wonder, “What about my culture? Does that get any respect?”

This isn’t a partisan issue. It’s a bipartisan issue. Businesspeople from both parties love cheap labor. If they have to drive the middle class out of Minnesota while importing low-skill international workers that they pay a pittance, then that’s what they’re willing to do.

That isn’t to say that all businesspeople think that way. They don’t. I’m just identifying the fact that there are some entrepreneurs who do think that way. Often, they’re found in the hospitality and meat-packing industries.

The point is simple: importing thousands of international refugees isn’t sustainable. Politicians that tell us otherwise are either lying or they’re too stupid to serve us properly.

Technorati: LSS, Catholic Charities, Refugee Resettlement Program, Budget Deficits, Welcoming Community, St. Cloud, Jeff Johnson, Donald Trump, Accountability, Office of Legislative Auditor

Let’s start by saying that Oprah is the perfect Democrat. To use Peter Schweitzer’s book title, Oprah is the perfect do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do liberal. I find it rich that a celebrity like Seal would call Oprah out for her hypocrisy. That’s exactly what he did when he posted a pair of pictures, including one where Oprah was kissing disgraced TV mogul Harvey Weinstein. Then he added an all-caps caption that said “WHEN YOU HAVE BEEN PART OF THE PROBLEM FOR DECADES BUT SUDDELY THEY ALL THINK YOU’RE PART OF THE SOLUTION.”

Seal didn’t stop there. Then he added “Oh I forgot, that’s right…..you’d heard the rumours but you had no idea he was actually serially assaulting young starry-eyed actresses who in turn had no idea what they were getting into. My bad.”

Make no mistake. Oprah was attempting to associate herself with the #MeToo movement. She wasn’t wearing a black dress just because that was this year’s fashion statement attire. This is the picture that Seal posted:

Seal wasn’t the only one to call Oprah out:

Juanita Broaddrick, the now-75-year-old retired nurse, has alleged former President Bill Clinton raped her during his 1978 campaign for Arkansas governor, and that his wife Hillary Clinton helped him cover it up. She brought that allegation to Oprah’s attention. “Hey @Oprah #GoldenGlobes,” tweeted Broaddrick Monday. “Funny I’ve never heard you mention my name. CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? Guess not. My rapist was/is your friend, Bill Clinton.”

This year in Hollywood, selective outrage is all the rage. In other words, #MeToo was just a PR stunt. Why hasn’t Hollywood fiercely criticized Bill Clinton? For that matter, why hasn’t Hollywood criticized Hillary for attacking the women that her philandering husband assaulted?

Since her speech, Oprah has been the object of lavish praise. That hasn’t changed the fact that she’s still living a fantasy life. What President Trump has proven is that, though he’s a multibillionaire, he’s still in touch with blue collar workers. Oprah hasn’t proven that by any stretch of the imagination.

Thus far, Oprah has proven that she’s a phony who wants to show she empathizes with the little people. That’s a rather elitist attitude. Couple that elitist attitude with the fact that she sat still while a predator stalked Hollywood and you’ve got a person without character.

If I had to give this article a title, I’d give the title ‘You can’t beat something with nothing’. Another title I’d consider is ‘Republicans win while Democrats whine’. Katie Packer Beeson’s article is spot on.

It starts by saying “The Democrats seem to enjoy gloating about the hot mess that is the Republican Party these days. Former GOP presidents warning the president about the people he surrounds himself with; sitting Republican U.S. senators calling the president unstable and unqualified; and a former GOP speaker of the house saying “there is no Republican Party. The president isn’t a Republican.” And Democrats’ friends in the mainstream media have kindly created an echo chamber that makes them think that they are always right and the Republicans are a bunch of sexist, racist, whack jobs. So why aren’t they winning?”

It continued, saying “So when they lost the election, there was a reckoning. The leadership of the Democratic Party was drummed up and new, forward-looking leaders took the reins and offered an alternative to what they saw as the disaster of Donald Trump. Wait, no. That isn’t what happened. Instead, they re-elected Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the house. They elected Chuck Schumer as Senate majority [editor’s note: Schumer is minority leader] leader and completely sold out to the New York and California wings of the Democratic Party.”

Then there’s this:

Instead of talking about middle-class tax cuts, they talked about transgender bathroom access. Instead of talking about fixing Obamacare, which was crushing many in the middle class with high premiums and complicated doctor selections, they walked right into the trap of the alt-right and began tearing down Civil War statues.

Democrats still haven’t figured out how to talk to blue collar America. They’re experts at talking to college professors and progressive activists but they’re worthless at talking with factory workers, small businesses and tradesmen. It’s like those people are from another planet. (Perhaps, it’s the Democrats that are from a different planet?)

Look how paralyzed Hillary looks when confronted by a coal miner:

Hillary looked positively petrified. She looked like she would’ve rather been anywhere else in the world than at that roundtable.

What [Democrats] don’t seem to understand is that you can point out your opponent’s weaknesses all day long, but if you don’t provide an alternative, then people will stick with the status quo. I’ve spoken to dozens of Republican women in recent months who have grown disillusioned with the Republican Party, and when I ask why they don’t defect, the answer is always the same: “It’s no better over there.”

Until Democrats learn what animates blue collar workers, they should expect to lose lots of races, at least enough to keep them in the minority for a decade or more.

Technorati: Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, Transgender Bathrooms, Democrats, Blue Collar Workers, Factory Workers, Coal Miners, Donald Trump, Tax Cuts, Republicans, Election 2020

Hillary Clinton should leave the national stage for her own good. After reading this article, I question whether Hillary deals with reality anymore. According to the article, “Democrat Hillary Clinton claimed Wednesday that the Republican Party was ‘imploding.'” It isn’t that I think she’s losing her mind. It’s that I think she isn’t that interested in the truth.

This article suggests that Hillary isn’t telling the truth, saying “The Republican National Committee broke a fundraising record and raised more than $100 million during the first nine months of 2017, fueled by small-dollar donors at the center of a grassroots movement. In a statement released by RNC Chairman Ronna McDaniel, the “record-breaking fundraising has been fueled by grassroots enthusiasm for President Trump and the Republican Party,” McClatchy reported.” Meanwhile, “The Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, had raised $46.3 million through the end of August, the Free Beacon reported.”

Not to be outdone, MSNBC jumped on the theme:

Reporter Kasie Hunt agreed with Joe Scarborough that Jeff Flake’s speech “will be remembered years from now”, saying “I think that’s right, Joe. I mean, I think this was — I think this was a day — my head was spinning by the end of the day.” Later, she said that Sen. Flake’s “words were incredibly serious.” She also threw in the opinion that Sen. Flake “was extremely well-liked.” At that point, Scarborough said that “This shows the insanity that has overtaken the Republican Party.”

Actually, Joe, what’s exposed is how little you’ve listened to the American people. Small-dollar donations to the RNC are pouring in. Republicans control both ends of Pennsylvania Ave and tons of governorships. Further, the GOP completely controls both houses of state legislatures in 30+ states. If that’s the definition of insanity, then the American people are voting for insanity all across the nation. HINT: That’s what elitism looks like.

Jackie Kucinich and Andrew Desiderio insist that President Trump has picked another losing fight in their latest Daily Beast article.

According to Ms. Kucinich and Mr. Desiderio, “After backing a series of unsuccessful health care repeal efforts and a failed attempt to weaken a congressional effort to slap new sanctions on Russia, Trump has thrown his questionable political weight behind another effort that could already be doomed: The RAISE Act. The bill, authored by Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and David Perdue (R-GA), was unveiled on Wednesday at the White House and touted as a way to ensure that American workers’ wages and job security are prioritized, and that legal, skilled immigrants who speak English are sent to the front of the employment line.”

There’s little question that Democrats won’t let the RAISE Act get to a final vote. In that sense, President Trump has picked a losing fight. In the bigger sense, though, President Trump couldn’t pick a bigger winner for the Republican Party.

First, before the bill got its first committee hearing, Jim Acosta teed things up perfectly for Republicans in this diatribe:

To the left, Jim Acosta is a hero. In their minds, he stood up to the Trump administration and proved that Republicans were evil. Unfortunately for Democrats, they come across as not caring about blue collar voters in this fight. First, RAISE is an acronym that stands for “Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment.” Blue collar voters understand the negative effects that illegal immigration has had on their (stagnant) wages.

The bigger victory for Republicans is that Democrats will filibuster the RAISE Act, which will strengthen the impression with voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan that Democrats don’t like blue collar voters. Finally, Republicans can use this fight between Acosta and Stephen Miller in ads next year. They’ll use these ads to re-inforce the Democrats’ elitist image.

Jim Acosta probably didn’t see it coming. When he tweeted that President Trump had held a fake news conference, it isn’t likely that he anticipated getting crushed on Twitter. That’s what happened, though. It all started after the press conference when Acosta tweeted “Isn’t it a ‘fake news conference’ to take a question from a reporter who is essentially an ally of the White House?”

That’s where the bloodbath began.

Donald Trump Jr. replied “So by that logic, was every news conference for the last 8 years #fakenews Jim?” After that, Ari Fleischer replied “Jim - care to guess how many questions I took from reporters who went on to join the Obama WH?”

Acosta’s beatdown didn’t finish there. Next, he said “The other thing that was ‘fake news’ coming from President Trump is when he said, ‘Well, I keep hearing it’s 17 intelligence agencies that say Russia meddled in the election, I think it’s only three or four,’” Acosta said. ‘Where does that number come from? Where does this ‘three or four’ number come from? My suspicion…is that if we go to the administration and ask them for this question, I’m not so sure we’re going to get an answer.'”

That’s what happens when you when you send a boy to do a man’s job. Here’s the administration’s official reply:

The assessment was made by four intelligence agencies – the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizers in the American intelligence community.

When didn’t the media ask softball questions of Jay Carney? The only tough questions he got were from Ed Henry. Follow-up questions were few and far between. The people who asked questions of Carney were more like stenographers than reporters. I’d argue that Acosta is part of the Stenographers Brigade after watching this video:

When will the MSM start digging into that scandal? Will they ever dig into that scandal? Apparently, it’s ok to do nothing while Russia is hacking into our election system but it isn’t ok to have people start rumors about the possibility of a Trump campaign worker making contact with a Russian.

A decade ago, I created the term Agenda Media. It’s more true now than it’s ever been. Since President Trump was inaugurated, the MSM have acted like the Agenda Media. They aren’t reporters anymore. They’re partisans with press badges.

Technorati: Jim Acosta, CNN, Agenda Media, Fake News, Jay Carney, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Ari Fleischer, Russian Collusion, Press Conferences