Category Archives: Trump
Democratic Party Meltdown
The Democratic Party meltdown continues.
The party’s condition took a turn for the worse when Jill Stein’s election recount turned up more votes than voters in Detroit. The recount was ended.
Then John Podesta demanded that the 538 members of the Electoral College be briefed by the CIA. The purpose being to inform the electors of Russian efforts to elect Trump.
For his part, President Obama is back to drawing red lines. He says the U.S. will respond to Russia “at a time and place of our choosing.”
Democratic Party Meltdown
Meanwhile, President-elect The Donald tweets, “Are we talking about the same cyber attack where it was revealed the head of the DNC illegally gave Hillary the questions to the debate?”
Big Government
In his 1996 State of the Union speech Bill Clinton signed the death certificate for the era of big government. He went on to challenge Congress to send him a welfare reform bill. Congress did just that and he signed it.
But Big Gov was Rasputin-like. According to the Cato Institute federal spending grew 60% during the George W. Bush years. Then in 2012 Barack Obama killed Clinton’s signature Welfare reform and Rasputin was back.
Hillary Clinton, pushed to the left by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, campaigned to expand the Big Government command and control economy even further. But she lost.
Big Government RIP?
So Rasputin is dead again.
Now what’s this Donald Trump trillion dollar stimulus plan all about?
Trump Tweets
Republicans in Congress were frustrating President Obama’s agenda . So, in 2014, he decided to go it alone. He said, “I have a phone and a pen.”
Outlining the strategy, Obama said he plans to use his pen to sign executive actions and his phone to convene outside groups in support of his agenda if Congress proves unable or unwilling to act on his priorities.
Trump Tweets
Speaking of phones, President-elect Trump has been taking phone calls without China’s approval. And if you don’t like it you’ll get Trump tweets about it.
Trumped up One China Policy
Donald Trump’s phone conversation with the president of Taiwan was a diplomatic blunder. According to diplomats. They say it upsets the One China Policy. That’s the policy where everybody pretends Mainland China exits and Taiwan doesn’t.
The U.S. sold the nonexistent regime $1.83 billion in weapons last year. And China is Taiwan’s biggest trading partner.
One China Policy
Henry Kissinger helped invent the One China policy in 1971. This week he took a ride up the golden elevator to meet Trump. He was impressed. He says Trump is a unique president-elect because he has “no baggage.”
I don’t think The Donald cares who calls him on the phone. William Murchison of the Dallas Morning News definitely doesn’t care. You can read his column here.
Trump’s Animal Spirits
James Fallows, in the October Atlantic, says Jane Goodall told him that Donald Trump reminds her of a chimp:
In many ways the performances of Donald Trump remind me of male chimpanzees and their dominance rituals,” Jane Goodall, the anthropologist, told me shortly before Trump won the GOP nomination. “In order to impress rivals, males seeking to rise in the dominance hierarchy perform spectacular displays: stamping, slapping the ground, dragging branches, throwing rocks. The more vigorous and imaginative the display, the faster the individual is likely to rise in the hierarchy, and the longer he is likely to maintain that position.”
Animal Spirits
The elite made a monkey of Trump before the election. But since then he’s released the stock market’s animal spirits. Oil and the dollar dig The Donald too.
Many 401-k investors are bullish because stocks have hit record highs. But Clinton Foundation investors – not so much.
Well, at least one Clinton supporter has done ok. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is up 8% since the election.
