Understanding Tariffs

Keynesian economics, which is taught at colleges and universities around the country, explains that tariffs are a simple tax on imports. But they are not really that simple and without larger ramifications and are not just used for political posturing.

A larger tariff would benefit domestic producers if there was a manufacturing industry competing with the tariffed goods arriving from abroad. We are told that tariffs were a major source of U.S. government revenue during the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

Tariffs bring much political controversy. The U.S. has been a low tariff country with a few exceptions. Some countries, to protect their industries, levy heavy tariffs by as much as 100-400 percent to protect their domestic industries.

Canada provided a retaliation list of the items they are imposing tariffs on to match President Trump’s tariff of 25%. https://immigrationnewscanada.ca/us-goods-in-canada-affected-by-tariff/

President Trump announced in his Oval Office briefing today that Canada and India charge as much as 400% tariff tax on certain American products and farm produce. The United States charges European automakers only 2 ½% tariffs on European cars. European auto makers just announced, President Trump said, the lowering of their tariffs against U.S. car manufacturers to 2 ½%.

Major industries currently affected by tariffs are manufacturing of heavy machinery, autos, auto parts, consumer electronics, agricultural products, steel, and aluminum.

“A tariff handicaps all foreign suppliers equally, and it awards sales to those firms and nations that can supply the goods most cheaply, presumably because they are more efficient,” not because they may have cut corners in the production process or used substandard materials.

A type of disguised tariff is a quota. A quota is a government’s legal maximum amount of goods permitted into the country from abroad per year or some other unit of time. The few items enumerated under quotas are textiles, meat, and sugar. Quotas naturally raise the price of goods which are subject to quantity/number limitations because the supply is diminished, and we do not have much domestic production of said goods.

Sometimes the government provides payment to an exporter to reduce the exporter’s costs thus the exporter reduces their selling price of a specific good. Some governments use such export subsidies heavily to help their domestic exporters compete more easily with other countries.

A tariff is acknowledged to be more beneficial to domestic producers as they are not exposed to such a tax. A quota is more capricious as it can be rewarded to other countries based on political favoritism. For example, Keynesian economists believe that the “U.S. sugar quota was for years suspected of being a major source of corruption in the Caribbean” because of potential political favoritism.

The issue of tariffs and quotas is not as simple as it seems. A nation imposing higher tariffs will force the opposing countries to raise their own tariffs resulting in a trade war. Trade wars lead to a reduction of trade. Keynesian economists give as an example what happened to the world economy in the 1930s which helped prolong the worldwide depression.

If a country can impose tariffs and quotas without fear of retaliation, it will work, however when all countries are able to use them, everyone will lose eventually.

A country can restrict trade by tariffs to protect specific domestic industries from foreign competition. The “cheap foreign labor” argument pops up. The government can set up trade adjustment assistance for those hurt by foreign competition, i.e., specific unemployment benefits, loans, retraining programs, college courses, and other aid to workers and firms. At what point should such aid stop?

The third argument for trade protection in the form of tariffs and quotas would be to maintain national defense. If military parts and equipment is produced by a nation that has been or is suddenly becoming hostile, what would keep them from stopping the production and exportation to the U.S. of a strategic product?

President Trump placed tariffs in 2025 on imports from Canada, Mexico, and China with the goal to bring back manufacturing jobs or protect the existing domestic ones.

According to CEO Magazine, 25% tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum affected the production costs of the auto industry which uses steel and aluminum. Some of the costs may be passed on to consumers. Supply chain disruption may affect the supply from Mexico and Canada. Companies affected are Ford, GM, Tesla, BorgWarner, and Aptiv, relying on global semiconductor supply chains.

President Trump imposed a 20% tariff on Chinese imports affecting everyone who uses many electronic components produced in China. Higher prices will be paid for smartphones and laptops. Supply chain disruptions will be expected, like the Covid ones resulting from the forced lockdowns.

The 20% tariff on Chinese imports will result on higher prices in retail and apparel industries such as Nike, Adidas, and companies like Walmart and Target. Higher costs for consumers, reduced profit margin, and potential reduction in consumer demand which may not be so devastating for consumers who already own too much stuff.

Companies like Nvidia, AMD, and Intel who produce their chips overseas, will have higher costs thus their production price increases may be passed on to the consumer. Impact of 2025 U.S. Tariffs on Key Industries and Companies

In the short run, prices may be higher in those industries affected by increased tariffs and supply chain disruptions may occur. Eventually, President Trump’s tariffs may help the (re)establishment of a domestic industry production and the creation of jobs unless it involves the type of jobs typically done robotically.

 

 

Next Move for President Trump

 From monomakhos.com:

"So what should Trump do? After all, he’s still president.

How about trying these on for size?

1. Fire Chris Wray as FBI director. Immediately. Put in Rudy Giuliani. He broke the Five Families in New York, he can take down the Biden and Clinton crime families.

2. Fire Gina Haspell as CIA director. Immediately. Replace her with Ric Grenell. Start releasing documents. Burn all the intel sources that started the Russia Collusion Hoax. Let the chips fall where they may.

3. Take away the security clearances of all the major Deep State players. You did it with John Brennan now go after James Clapper, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and even Joe Biden. (As for Biden, see #4 below: he’s a security risk.)

4. Direct AG Barr to go after the Biden laptop scandal hard. Better yet, start releasing the info/photos on them daily. Let the people know that Biden is the Manchurian Candidate and the Chicoms have him by the short and curlies.

5. Hold rallies. Especially close to the capitals of those states which have Democrat governors. Lansing, MI would be ideal; so would Harrisburg, PA and Raleigh, NC. Just a couple a week. Play “Hail to the Chief” for each and every appearance.

6. Start the pardon process. Pardon Paul Manafort and Roger Stone. Amnesty Edward Snowden and Julian Assange. Find others to pardon. Better yet, blanket pardons for everyone who’s worked for you.

7. Get on TV and address the nation. Trump did that last night in a masterful way; now keep on hammering the point that the system is rigged. It is. Don’t try to convince the cucks on FOX that it is. They know it. Even our enemies believe it. So just keep on hammering away at the point.

8. Tell Cocaine Mitch to go all “Hercules Unleashed” on Big Tech. Tell him not to waste our time hauling Zuckerberg, Dorsey, et. al., before some Senate committee meeting. Break them up. Now. (Believe it or not, the Dems in the House will probably go along with it if you tell them that the Tech Titans will cough up major bucks in order to forestall that eventuality.)

9. Tell the Republicans in the Senate that they can also act without impunity when it comes to preserving liberty. I can assure you that if Lindsey Graham has been bitch-slapped by reality then they all have as well. Make sure there’s no daylight between you and them. Remind them that the Globalists spent hundreds of millions of dollars to try and take them out and they’re still standing. Tell them that electorally, they’re bullet-proof. Because they are.

10. Let the Establishment know that you’ve got their number. All of the above are examples of their moral bankruptcy, surely you’ve got other aces up your sleeve.

Don’t. Give. In. It’s ain’t over. Not by a long shot.:

P.S. Still don’t believe me? Take a gander at this graph (it’s what happened to the Chinese Yuan at 7:50pm last night):

https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1323819772711116803?s=01"

What Did President Trump Do to the Post Office?

Photo: Ileana Johnson 8/29/20
Photo taken in the Ripley's Believe or Not
Museum in Williamsburg, Virginia

What did President Trump do to the post office that the bureaucracy that’s been losing money for decades has not done to itself?

Let's look at it logically:

1. When was the last time you actually wrote a letter to any of your relatives and they answered back? That is a lot of postage and mail that the post office no longer delivers because we communicate via text, email, and facetime.

2. Are there many people left who still write a check to pay bills that requires sending by mail and purchasing a stamp?

3. How many people choose to have packages sent by USPS when FedEx and UPS are so much faster?

4. Why pay the post office when you can have the packages delivered and returned to Amazon or other retailer for free?

5. Are Democrats that dense and cannot see that the postal service has to reduce drop off boxes and remove them from places where nobody places letters inside anymore and the boxes are always empty? Don't they realize that those USPS truck use up a lot of gasoline and spew a lot of pollution into the air? Why not remove 15,000 unused mail boxes?

6. The post office always allocates its yearly funding first to the pension fund, years in advance.

7. I guess, it is more politically convenient and expedient to blame President Trump for the changing times and the changing financial fortunes of the post office.

8. No, Nancy Pelosi, we do not need your Democrats cheating through mail in voting. You can put your masks on and go vote in person. You don't seem too worried about thousands of your protesting black shirts who may or may not wear masks but they sure are well armed.

9. Due to the Democrat lockdown that has destroyed so many mom and pop and other mid-sized businesses, we no longer receive any volume of advertising, coupons, or catalogs through the mail. J.C. Penney and Sears are gone and so are their voluminous catalogs. We grew up with those and we used them to order everything from rakes to Christmas ornaments and they all arrived with the post office truck. Very few catalogs arrive through the mail anymore. People order online. Businesses adapted and streamlined. Some no longer have catalogs at all.

Mr. President, Can We Return to 'Made in America' Again?

On March 9, 2020, I flew back to D.C. The flight was more than half empty which was quite unusual – all flights to D.C. have been running at full capacity prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. Now remaining flights are almost empty with demand down in some cases by 96 percent.

A month later I wrote an article asking President Trump to open up the economy as it became more evident that the supply and delivery chains have been severely disrupted by the draconian quarantine-driven lockdowns of individual Democrat states, lockdowns which are yet to be lifted partially or fully. This resulted in closing small American businesses, the bread and butter of our economy. https://canadafreepress.com/article/open-up-the-u.s.-economy-as-soon-as-possible

Usually a quarantine is established to separate sick people from the healthy and, as the word says, it is meant for 40 days. But the state governors have decided to lock down healthy people, beyond the 40 days, with plans of more in-home confinement, robbing them of their freedom of assembly, religion, speech, and freedom of movement.

With 30 millions out of work and fudged death numbers from Covid-19, the hysteria has built up to the point where people are afraid to even get out of their homes without a mask, much less go to work.

Unemployment checks, ginned up fear and panic, bailouts, and forced government closures of businesses based on random decisions of “essential vs. non-essential” have further exacerbated the problem of returning to work. Social interaction has become evil in less than two months of constant government PSAs on TV, radio, print media, and grocery stores.

Salesmen in America used to travel around the country to small towns USA in the 70s-80s and found every little town with a town square with stores and factories around the town where people would be employed. Those factories sit empty now, victims of the production exodus to the Communist China or the buildings have been razed to make room for some other development. In light of the Covid-19 manufactured crisis which is destroying the world’s economy, the obvious question must be asked, why can we not build things in America again?

There are many products in short supply right now but freezers, upright and chest type, are something that we never thought would be hard to find. One store offered to order a freezer but it would not arrive earlier than June and, if things do not improve, it may be August or later.

A local owner of a furniture appliance store said that “there are no freezers, there is a national shortage.” An order could be placed but the supplier suggested the earliest tentative arrival as the end of May or June.

Then the  owner launched into a discussion about what is going on in this country and how wrong this shutdown is. He said, that if the mayor had told him that he had to close his shop (a business he has built over decades), he would have gone to jail rather than close his store. He was of the opinion that shutting down the country and businesses is completely ludicrous.  He also added that most who come into their store ask if the appliances are made in America.

In a 2015 Consumer Report recommendations for best freezers, about half of them were made at the time in the U.S. https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2015/05/best-american-made-appliances/index.htm?EXTKEY=NW0N01506

In a 2019 interview, Marc Blumenthal said that “an Amana chest freezer and a Maytag upright freezer are made in Ottawa, Ohio.” https://www.cleveland.com/business/2015/06/ohio-built_appliances_are_among_the_best_made_in_america_consumer_reports_says.html

Should we as consumers put pressure on suppliers and store owners to have more made in America products and parts? Is it right to export most of our manufacturing to an inimical country, one ruled by the Communist Party at that, when it is not in our best interest?

If you can’t find a freezer right now and you wish to purchase one, perhaps you should join a grassroots campaign to bring back more manufacturing to America under American ownership.

There are many former manufacturing hubs around the country where factories are sitting empty. Can't Americans who have the know-how re-purpose old factories? President Trump has certainly advocated so for a long time. America needs to manufacture its own products, especially key industries for our nation’s security such as defense, steel, medical equipment, computers, pharmaceuticals, meat packing, vitamins, appliances, and other essentials for our food supply.

These are unintended consequence of a Chinese produced Covid-19 crisis. We have allowed China to control manufacturing in the U.S. of formerly Made in America products. For a list of products still made in America check here and the reference list at the bottom of this article. www.americanmanufacturing.org

In order to return manufacturing to the U.S., we must train a better skilled workforce. Not everybody needs to go to college to get an unmarketable degree in social and racial justice for which there are so few jobs. It is noteworthy that you prefer justice to rule the world but can you feed and shelter your family with a worthless college degree? Many technical and manufacturing jobs pay so much better and you don’t have to spend your parents’ life savings on expensive college tuition. And there is always huge satisfaction at the end of the day for a skilled job well done.

Made in the USA reference list:

https://www.actforamerica.org/made-in-usa

https://www.americanmanufacturing.org/made-in-america

https://www.madeinamerica.co/pages/thelist

https://madeinusaforever.com/

https://stillmadeinusa.com/kitchen.html

https://americansworking.com/guns-made-in-the-usa/amp/

https://anytownusa.com/

https://www.everythingkitchens.com/made-in-the-usa.html

http://www.strictlyusa.com/

https://www.themadeinamericamovement.com/made-in-usa-companies/

https://www.usalovelist.com/

https://arisindustrial.com/made-in-usa/

Mr. President, Please Open the U.S. Economy!

Mr. President,

Please open up the U.S. economy as soon as possible!

It is very sad that so many people around the world fell ill, suffered, and thousands have lost their lives to this horrible virus. But the rest of the globe must go on living in a terrible economic situation which is about to get much worse than most people realize. Is it a moral crime to care about the sick but to advocate for the living too?

What about the people who are sick with other ailments and cannot see their doctors because the offices are closed? Are they not entitled to be seen by a doctor? Some may die by neglect.

Can you not see that you are playing in the hands of China, Russia, and the global communists who want nothing more but to destroy the U.S. economy in order to make a smoother transition to take over its people for the one global super-state ruled by communists? They want us dependent on China and the communists for all of our needs - economically, medically, financially, educationally, and every other way possible. And you are one courageous American who has derailed their agenda for now.

China already owns so much of this country! Bring back our industries from China, communists are NOT our friends and allies. China owns so much land and businesses in this country already – Hollywood, the media, banks, manufacturing, etc.

Look what they have done to businesses in northern Italy. Here is the real reason Italy had so much Coronavirus – they have hundreds of thousands of legal immigrant Chinese working in the artisanal high end trade of leather and silk and hundreds of thousands of illegal Chinese immigrants as well.

I don’t know where this virus came from but I do understand economics. China is trying to bankrupt our economy in order to come in and buy more businesses in trouble at bottom prices.

Mr. President, you won’t have money to build up our military to defend us against a Chinese military invasion, and they are building up their military like crazy. You will be too busy finding food and medicine for destitute Americans who are already out of jobs. Twenty-five percent of the labor force is out of work.

How are you going to build tanks with steel from China? What if they change their minds and refuse to ship it after they’ve taken our money?

I am not so sure the economy is going to bounce right back up as some ecstatic economists have stated – “as soon as the lockdown is over, people will go back to work and everything will be fine.”  Small businesses, single family owned, do not have the ability to bounce back like a corporation which can raise money by issuing more stock or get huge government bailouts. Small business owners rely on revenue, their savings, and loans; they can’t raise capital any other way. After weeks of lockdown, how many small business owners, the back bone of America, will be able to survive and rehire their former employees?

Mr. President, can you not see that the Democrats are 100 percent socialists/communists now and don’t give a flip about our country? They investigate you non-stop in order to deflect what they are doing to this country, the fundamental transformation to socialism, on its way to communism.

And half of America is so brain-washed by the public school education that they think communism is great. You have to fight them at the ballot box as well because they cheat and lie.

Build that wall already! If the countless new illegals that crossed our borders so far would not have come here to sanctuary cities, we might not have had this Coronavirus invasion. And their illegal votes might not have flipped Virginia socialist last November.

We need our second amendment, we need our guns to fight a potential communist invasion and to protect ourselves from government intrusion. We might even need our guns to protect our food supply from looters.

Stop giving money to churches and church-sponsored NGOs to bring illegals into this country. Churches have been infiltrated by communists as well and they are no longer preaching the gospel to their parishioners. They are preaching globalism, a mega state ruled by communists.

Americans are too ignorant and naive to realize that the communist ideology has been the most destructive force in history, killing at least 100 million innocents.

Stop giving money to the U.N. and all the tin pot dictatorships around the world. The WHO is a bureaucratic organization run by third world despots. They hate America and would love to see its downfall.

Stop depending so much on computer modeling. The results are as faulty as the incorrect data which had been input by “experts” with nefarious agendas but pretending to care for the people. Just like the global warming modeling scam, the data spewed out garbage because faulty input readings and variables were used.

Mr. President, can you not see who is pulling  the Coronavirus policy strings in your White House? A real practicing physician would not be discounting a potential life-saving drug like hydroxychloroquine for his patients, but your Coronavirus tsars do because they are political hacks supporting their boss Bill Gates, who has invested a lot of money in a vaccine with which he wants population control of the globe. Can you not see they are financially-vested in a vaccine, not a cure? But people around the globe need a cure right now, not 18 months in the future after the vaccine had been developed and tested on humans.

America Fundamentally Transformed

Photo: Ileana Johnson

In the spring of 2007 I was teaching a small class of non-traditional students, some as young as eighteen and some older than I was. It was an interesting mixture of blacks, whites, Hispanics, civilians and military who had jobs during the day and took classes at night to finish their college degrees. They were not the pampered and entitled snowflakes of today; they were hard-working Americans from all walks of life, some receiving Pell grants and some on military scholarships.

We always had interesting discussions as most brought their experience to class to contribute to our economic lessons. A few detracted from it with their unruly and disrespectful behavior. It was a bit too late to teach social manners to the two young black women who always arrived late, answered their phones in the classroom, and left often for bathroom breaks but returned with sodas, hamburgers, and fries from the nearby bowling alley.

Everyone was hungry, most students did not get a chance to get supper but some were patient enough to wait for the large break between the three-hour long classes before they bought food.

The two women, who wanted an A just by showing up for class, asked provocative questions such as, why does our textbook separate everybody by groups, age, disability, education, race, when giving economic statistics? Can we all not be just Americans, men and women? The fact that most textbooks are written by liberal college professors and are chosen as part of the curriculum by more liberal college professors and administrators did not dawn on them.

The “maverick” candidate Obama with his “beautiful family” and what he could do for our country and the black community economically was often the talk during breaks. One young man was especially excited as he was campaigning for him around the state.

My traditional college students during the day would often miss classes or arrive late with starry eyes from campaign rallies in support of this “transformational” candidate who would revolutionize America and give everyone free housing, health, food, and college. The excitement was so palpable, you could package it in gold tin foil with a blue ribbon. A few students even endangered their lives by standing in the middle of busy intersections holding signs in support of the unknown Chicagoan’s candidacy.

Schools staffed with Democrats to the rafters organized trips two hours away to hear candidate Obama who, as president of the largest economy on earth at the time, would “fundamentally transform” America into the socialist paradise of his anti-American and racist ideology. He was going to be a uniter and make everything that ailed this country better. At least that’s what everyone thought.

A local radio shock jock was asking listeners who they will vote for President in November. One caller said he would choose the unknown half-black candidate Obama because, “he would screw up things so badly, nobody would ever elect another socialist to office.” He was wrong on the election part. Obama was elected twice and more socialists and communists are elected to office today.

Eleven years later, we are divided more than ever along ideological and racial lines. The economy is improving thanks to the leadership of President Trump who is presiding over a 4.2% GDP growth unlike his predecessor who was busy telling us that a weak economy, less than 2% growth, was the new norm. President Trump is making good on the many promises candidate Trump has made to make America great again, his campaign slogan.

The Democrat side is busy telling us that America was never great. I wonder why everybody is risking life and limb to come to America if it is such a bad, racist, and intolerant place to be.

The entire country is in a social and political ailment. Communists, socialists, and anarchists are slowly taking over the country. Washington is a political Swamp nobody can possibly ever drain. People not qualified to answer a simple history or geopolitical question are elected to Democrat office by Democrat voters equally ignorant, lacking basic information, civics, and history knowledge, and who often do not speak English and vote legally and illegally.

The education of our children that used to be the envy of the world has taken an intolerant Marxist tone. Violent fascist and racist organizations like ANTIFA and BLM have found nests on campuses around the country, formed as their perceived need to enforce social justice. Their anger that the Democrat candidate Hillary lost the election is endless and incurable.

The media is bashing President Trump non-stop, vilifying him, his family, and everything he does. A man who has given up so much to do what is right for our country has become public enemy number one for all Democrat voters who seem to have lost their minds, mired in pure hate and insanity.

Hollywood college dropouts and ball players have joined in the fray of anti-Americanism. They use their microphones afforded by successful roles in movies which have suddenly made them experts, telling us how to live and how to become globalists by giving up our language, borders, and culture to invading hordes of economic refugees from third world countries.

The then transformational candidate Barack Hussein Obama, who promised to heal all the wounds and right all the wrongs, give his supporters free food, education, health, housing, cars, has turned our country into such an anti-American and welfare-centered direction that it is uncertain right now that we would ever be able to recover.

What is good has become bad, evil has become good, and moral values have been replaced by moral relativism, decadence, and filth. America continues to be fundamentally transformed from the shadows.

 

 

My Take on the Teacher of the Year Award

Photo credit: IJR Red

As a former teacher, I was annoyed but not at all surprised by the choice for this year’s Teacher of the Year Award. The recipient with a political agenda showed the nation what an “exceptional teacher” looks like. With her boorish and rude behavior during the ceremony at the White House, she bashed and disrespected our President in front of the entire nation and in front of school children who look up to teachers like her to be objective. Yet many indoctrinate their students into their twisted political world eight hours a day, not into the American-exceptionalism that they should.

President Trump, exhibiting class and respect, mentioned the “incredible devotion that has earned her the adoration, total adoration, of her students and colleagues, the school district, community, and the entire state.” https://www.facebook.com/ijrredpresents/videos/179722432727814/

The petty little ideologue was not just wearing an insufferable smirk the whole time, she was rude and ungrateful and refused to shake the president’s hand or clap when appropriate.  Honored for her “adoration” in the classroom, she could not muster the slightest propriety for the moment and the place.  

Her rudeness and lack of decorum are a disgrace to the profession. There are so many deserving teachers out there who work in the education trenches every day without being recognized for their work because their politics are of a different kind than the Democrat-sanctioned socialist plantation of Marxist adoration.

Selecting a Teacher of the Year begins at the local level and each school district has their own criteria that tend to match the national guidelines. You will be very surprised to know that parents and students have nothing to do with the selection process even though they say the nominee is adored and respected by the community which they serve. The high ranking administrators form a selection committee composed of administrators, teachers, educational service personnel, student support personnel, and past Teacher of the Year winners and nominees.

Some common denominators are membership in the National Education Association (NEA), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), with their financial support for the Democrat Party, and other university-sponsored organizations who are mills for future teachers.

Teaching awards are nothing but a Democrat popularity contest of who is the most progressive, outrageous, and anti-American progressive ideologues in good standing with the top administrators and other decision-makers who can send that person to the top of the heap.

“According to the criteria for the National Teacher of the Year Program, a Teacher of the Year should inspire all students to learn. Teachers who aspire to this award do not stick to the textbook or traditional methods of teaching.”

The nominees usually push the latest fad in education, currently the Common Core curriculum. The top nominees believe in global education, global citizenship, no borders, the anthropogenic global warming, the rights of the illegal aliens and refugees that trump those of American citizens, alternative lifestyles, Islam over Christianity, and deviant sexual behaviors promoted as the norm and introduced by force into the classroom as early as kindergarten in some states.

Mandy Manning, this year’s awardee, is an English teacher in Spokane, Washington, and teaches refugees and immigrant children from countries like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Guatemala, Myanmar, Mexico, and Tanzania. It is no surprise that a political person like her would be chosen as spokesperson for an entire profession. https://www.yahoo.com/news/mandy-manning-teacher-handed-trump-080024349.html

No mention is made whether these immigrant children are legal or illegal as it does not matter to liberals if we follow the law as long as we have more future Democrat Party voters in our midst.

Is it any wonder that such “educators” are turning our children into communist agitators and snowflakes, with no allegiance to our country, our history, our sovereignty, our flag, our pledge of allegiance, God, and to a sound education?

This teacher of the year affronted our President the entire time.  If she is the teacher of the year, the best and brightest that our country can produce, what must the rest of the teachers be like?

Based on the buttons she was wearing during the ceremony, a rainbow apple, Transgender Rights, Women’s March, and the letters she gave the President from her immigrant students, this person obviously puts the interests of immigrant children, refugee children, and a women’s movement that embarrasses at least half of this country’s female population ahead of America’s students’ interests.

Whatever happened to teaching reading, writing, American history, American exceptionalism, science, and American civics objectively, without the teacher’s political agenda being front and center eight hours a day?

 

President Trump Will Be Re-elected with 40 States

Stephen Moore, chief economist, policy analyst,  author, and,  by his own admission, one of the writers of President Trump’s tax plan, spoke last night to a special gathering of the Virginia Women for Trump, organized by Alice Butler, the Irish firebrand who loves America and fully supports President Trump.

Stephen Moore, an early supporter of Donald Trump, had predicted that he would be elected president and that he will be re-elected president with 40 states, “but Virginia has to be one of those states.”  

Moore liked the way Trump spoke to the forgotten men and women in this country and the promises he had made to improve the terrible economy under Obama.

“Donald Trump has delivered in such an amazing way for the working class in this country.” And our booming economy proves it, it is such a remarkable success story that the main stream media constantly ignores.

“We are the party of the working class, the Democrats are the party of the media, the academics, and the rich,” said Moore.

Stephen Moore and Larry Kudlow were asked by President Trump to work on the tax issue together, to cut corporate tax, to increase the child tax credit, and to reduce the tax burden for families with children; he wanted every single person in America to get a tax cut. Despite the MSM’s non-stop claim that this is a tax cut for the rich, “a lot of the rich do not even get a tax cut if they live in states like California,” said Moore.

The average middle class family will receive a $2,200 tax cut. That may be peanuts to a person like Nancy Pelosi who lives on “a 30-acre compound with tennis courts and swimming pools, those are ‘crumbs,’ but for the working class families it means that you can pay tuition, take a vacation, and pay your healthcare bills.”

We cut the corporate tax rate, which is the highest tax rate in the world, from 35 percent to 21 percent, without one Democrat voting in favor of it. What are their economic growth and job creation messages? They are “I hate Trump,” “impeach Trump,” and “he is not fit to be president.” But every Republican in the Senate voted for this tax bill, added Moore.

As a result of this corporate tax cut, 100,000 Disney employees will get pay bonuses, 25,000 workers at Verizon will get pay bonuses and a total of 3 million American workers are getting bonuses, pay raises, or increases in their benefits.  And the tax cut bill is only a month old.

Fifty-five million Americans own stock, most have 401k plans, 30 million Americans have IRAs, and another 25 million have pension plans. They are the beneficiaries of the incredible upswing in the stock market.

“Since Donald Trump was elected, the day after the election, the Dow Jones went up 700 points, the Trump Effect, and it has not stopped increasing since. The Dow Jones went up from 18,000 to 26,300, a 43 percent increase, a seven trillion dollar increase in wealth. We have never seen this kind of growth before.”

“The black unemployment rate today is at the lowest level since we started keeping these statistics in 1972,” said Moore. The Hispanic unemployment rate is also down. “The Labor Department reported that the number of Americans signing up for unemployment insurance was at the lowest level since 1965.”

Liberal economists have predicted that the world economy would crash if Donald Trump became president.  They advised people to sell their stocks and of course, they missed out on 42 percent increase. “Robert Reich was wrong on all of his predictions.”

Apple is the story of the year, Moore explained. “We offered to charge companies 10 percent if they repatriated capital.” Moore predicted that Apple would bring $100-$150 billion back. To Moore’s delight, Apple brought back $300 billion. Apple is creating 20,000 new high paying jobs and is going to pay $38 billion in federal taxes.

On the regulatory front, Moore boasted that Trump repealed 23 old regulations for any new regulation put in place by his administration. “We replaced an anti-America, anti-business president with a pro-America, pro-business president.”

They are now going to drill in Alaska’s Anwar because people in Alaska need jobs. We got rid of the individual mandate on Obamacare. “This is the thread that is going to unravel the whole thing.  Hopefully the free market will step in and offer plans based on competition and choice at a lower cost.”

Moore predicted that America’s economic growth will be 4 percent this year, something we have not had in twenty years. This is not the Obama economic effect as liberal pundits claim, “it is the effect that Obama is no longer president,” quipped Moore.

When asked about mortgage deduction, Moore responded that the old system included $1 million deduction. The House passed a bill that included $500,000 deduction. Trump tax cut bill compromised at $750,000. Answering to a liberal who claimed that the tax bill took away the working class mortgage deductions, Moore asked, how many working class people do you know who have a million dollar home?

According to Moore, the tax bill was unable to get a reduction in the capital gains tax and blue states are not going to fare as well under this tax bill.  But the middle class in every state will receive an extra $500 per child tax credit and the standard deductions doubled to $24,000.

President Trump is going to Davos, Switzerland, said Moore, to speak in front of “the one percent of one percenters,” the global elitists who are against everything that President Trump wants to do. These elitists hate Trump because “they want America to pay for everything” while our working class is suffering.  Why would President Trump speak in front of these European globalist elitists?  He is going to take a victory lap and explain how his economic policies are going to foster economic growth, job creation, and prosperity for America.

 

 

A Visit to the Trump International Hotel in D.C.

The Old Post Office and the Clock Tower
Photo: Ileana Johnson, December 2017

I had made mental plans to visit Trump International Hotel in D.C. for months. I was curious to see the Christmas decorations and especially the remodeling which kept the uber-lib D.C. residents up in arms – they hated the idea of a President who loved America and especially hated President Trump.

Located at 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, in the Old Post Office building, the stately structure with its Clock Tower is now a five-star hotel, ranked number 8 out of 141 hotels in Washington.

The Old Post Office building was built in 1899 and had been used as the city’s main post office until 1914. Functioning as an office building afterwards, it was nearly torn down in the 1920s to make room for the Federal Triangle construction and again in the 1970s for the completion of this complex.

Flag in the atrium and Clock Tower

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Romanesque Revival 19^th century U.S. architecture building, the third tallest building in Washington, was renovated in 1976 and again in 1983 when a food court and retail spaces were added.

The U.S. General Services Administration leased the property in 2013 for 60 years to a consortium headed by DJT Holdings LLC, a holding company that President Donald Trump owns through a revocable trust. After extensive renovations, the Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C. opened in September 2016.

After a car ride, a metro ride, and a short walk from the metro station around the IRS building, we found the actual hotel entrance. The façade entrance towards Pennsylvania Avenue was blocked and so was the side entrance facing the metro station. The one entrance open towards the metro was actually the entrance to the Clock Tower. The Trump Hotel does not rent this historical part of the building.

Trump International Hotel atrium

Photo: Ileana Johnson

 

Taking the longer route to the entrance, around the IRS building adjacent to the hotel, we ran into a share-ride bike with several tourists. The biker was trying to explain that we have to go back when one young pedestrian passing by interrupted and said that we have to go down, down, until we reach the flames of Hades. Not passing up this golden opportunity to put an uber-lib in his proper snowflake place, I interjected, you must have been there, and that is how you know so well.

The Clock Tower seen from the atrium

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2017

 

The Clock Tower, 315 ft. tall, houses the Bells of Congress and rewards the visitors with panoramic views of the District of Columbia and its surroundings, albeit it restricted by dirty plastic windows and vertical wires.

After the thorough check of the contents of my purse, we took two elevators to the Clock Tower and I heard Romanian spoken by an older couple dressed entirely in black. Engaging in a brief conversation with them, I found out that they had escaped communist Romania 50 years ago and had settled in Ontario. I was disgusted hearing this couple praise Canada and its European style socialist nanny government.

I welcomed the frigid winds at the top and the spectacular circular view of D.C. I could breathe freely away from the two ignorant elevator passengers I had struck up a conversation with. The top was heavily guarded by uniformed young men.

With 263 luxurious guest rooms and suites, Trump Hotel had done a spectacular job of renovating the Old Post Office building and turning it into a classy destination.

Christmas Tree in the atrium

Photo: Ileana Johnson

 

Crystal chandelier

Photo: Ileana Johnson

 

The atrium was adorned with beautiful crystal chandeliers, a huge Christmas tree, cozy chairs and couches, a bar adorned with empty crystal decanters, a reception desk with its decorative collection of Swarovski crystal obelisks, the bathrooms fitted with gold-plated fixtures, The Spa by Ivanka, and BLT Prime by David Burke restaurant with a balcony seated area overlooking the atrium.

Above Benjamin’s Bar & Lounge was a huge American flag, visible from the Tower elevator, and a glass ceiling which reflected the Clock Tower in the golden waning sun.

Collection Box by Christmas Tree to benefit a children's charity

Photo: Ileana Johnson

 

Brioni boutique in the atrium

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2017

 

An elegant metal box by the Christmas tree was collecting donations for a local children’s charity, the company’s commitment to help those in need. A Brioni couture boutique in the corner of the atrium offered elegant Italian tailored menswear.

Swarovski crystal obelisks

Photo: Ileana Johnson

 

We sat in comfortable chairs. It was tea time and many customers appeared to have made tea reservations as they were drinking tea and eating bite-size confections from elegant silver trays. Other sipped on their favorite wines.

We were famished so we ordered food. My salad was passable, the lettuce was fresh and crisp but the chicken was on the dry side. His hamburger was good but certainly overpriced which was to be expected in a five-star hotel. My second cup of chamomile tea with lemon was awful as he used the same tea bag and the water smelled like bleach. The small dessert we shared was European delicious and very light.

Service was very poor. Our waiter practically abandoned us for the next table – the women ordered glasses of wine and my husband and I don’t drink. I found the staff rather dismissive and rude. But it was worth spending $100 on marginal food and service in order to experience the beautifully renovated historic building.

National Christmas Tree

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2017

 

We left the hotel for the next destination of our day trip – the White House Christmas tree. I was surprised to see how barricaded the area surrounding the White House was. I remember years ago, when Bush was president, we were allowed on the sidewalk beside the fence and take pictures.

The National Christmas Tree was lit by wires of light. The fifty smaller fir trees from each state circled the area.  A miniature train set with Victorian houses was running on tracks at the foot of the tree. I took pictures and we started back on the slow trek to the metro, the car, and the drive home to far away suburbia.

 

 

President Trump's Executive Order on Promoting Agriculture and Rural Property in America

Photo: Ileana Johnson

President Trump’s Executive Order on Promoting Agriculture and Rural Prosperity in America which was signed on April 25, 2017, is significant in many ways, not the least of which is the Revocation of Executive Order 13575 of June 9, 2011, issued by President Obama, the Establishment of the White House Rural Council. https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/DCPD-201100431/pdf/DCPD-201100431.pdf

I wrote about the June 9, 2011 13575 order as soon as it was released and I have included it in my best-seller book, “U.N. Agenda 21: Environmental Piracy.” (pp. 88-91) This executive order established unchecked federal control over rural America in education, food supply, land use, water use, recreation, property rights, energy, and the lives of sixteen percent of the U.S. population. The executive order carefully chose the rural population because “they supply our food, fiber, and energy, safeguard our natural resources, and are essential in the development of science and innovation.” To sum it up, he who controls the food, land, and water controls everything else. https://www.amazon.com/U-N-Agenda-21-Environmental-Piracy-ebook/dp/B009WC6JXO/ref=sr_1_1_twi_kin_2/135-3153922-7408062?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493479812&sr=1-1&keywords=UN+Agenda+21%3A+Environmental+Piracy

The executive order of 2011 was promoted, “To enhance the Federal Government’s efforts to address the needs of rural America, this order establishes a council to better coordinate Federal programs and maximize the impact of Federal investment to promote economic prosperity and quality of life in our rural communities.” On the face of it, it sounds benign enough; except that it discusses sustainable rural development; the new bureaucracy to oversee it came from and was called the White House Rural Council. Sustainable Development is the lynchpin of U.N. Agenda 21 now morphed into U.N.’s Agenda 2030, U.N.’s blue print for global governance and control of human activity and private property.

President Trump revoked President Obama’s Executive Order 13575 and replaced it with “Promoting Agriculture and Rural Prosperity in America.” His EO establishes the Interagency Task Force on Agriculture and Rural Prosperity, with administrative support and funding from the Department of Agriculture, within the boundaries of law and “within existing appropriations.” The Secretary of Agriculture will be the Chair of the Task Force composed of 21 secretaries, assistants, directors, and heads of executive departments within the federal government. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/04/25/presidential-executive-order-promoting-agriculture-and-rural-prosperity

The Task Force “shall identify legislative, regulatory, and policy changes to promote in rural America agriculture, economic development, job growth, infrastructure improvements, technological improvements, energy security, and quality of life such as:

-          Remove barriers to economic prosperity

-          Adoption of innovations and technology for agricultural production and long-term sustainable rural development

-          Educational opportunities in agricultural education, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics

-          Empower state, local, and tribal agencies to implement rural economic development, agricultural, and environmental programs to relevant regional circumstances

On the surface, this is a good idea, however, most states, local, and tribal agencies have been infiltrated by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), an unelected U.N. organization which stealthily formulates regional and local development plans and then presents their “visioning,” already approved and signed by the board of supervisors, to the population at large, “the stakeholders.” Regionalism is also an important goal of Agenda 21/2030.

-          Respect “regional diversity of farms and ranches”

-          Rely on “best available science when reviewing or approving crop protection tools”

-          Access to a “reliable workforce in agriculture-related and rural-focused businesses”

-          Preserve “family farms and agribusiness operations when passed from one generation to the next,” making changes “to the estate tax and the tax valuation of family or cooperatively held businesses”

-          “Ensure that water users’ private property rights are not encumbered when they attempt to secure permits to operate on public lands”

-          Improve food safety based on science and “account for the unique circumstances of farms and ranches”

-          “Encourage the production, export, and use of domestically produced agricultural products”

-          “Address hurdles associated with access to resources on public lands for the rural communities that rely on cattle grazing, timber harvests, mining, recreation, and other multiple uses”

This is an interesting development as many farmers and ranchers have been battling the Bureau of Land Management and the Environmental Protection Agency for their generational use of public and private lands; farmers fought the EPA and their restrictive regulations that prevented them from using their land for farming purposes; individuals who collected rainwater and snow melt and were fined and jailed; and ranchers whose cattle were prohibited from and eventually killed for grazing on public lands.

President Trump directed that other executive orders he issued be coordinated with his EO on Promoting of Agriculture and Rural Prosperity in America:

-          EO 13771, Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs (January 30, 2017)

-          EO 13778, Restoring the Rule of Law, Federalism, and Economic Growth by Reviewing the “Waters of the United States” Rule (February 28, 2017)

-          EO 13783, Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth (March 28, 2017)

It remains to be seen how the highly entrenched bureaucrats will implement this executive order coming from our president with whom they fundamentally disagree, a president who wants to keep his campaign promises to the American people and also considering the fact that life-long Democrat and Republican establishment bureaucrats do not represent nor “serve” the interests of the American people.