THE PRESIDENT’S ANTI-RACISM IS SHIFTING THE OVERTON WINDOW
As Brit Hume pointed out recently, “People discerning a racist motive for Trump’s attack on Elijah Cummings are missing a key point: Trump attacks those who criticize him and his administration, black or white.”
Hume follows up with an amusing and color-coordinated list of people Trump has put in their place (Bernie Sanders: crazy, Elizabeth Warren: total fraud, Justin Amash: loser, Joe Biden: low IQ, Harry Reid: insane, etc., etc.).
Beyond the elements of political calculation and polemical style, however, Donald Trump’s recent tweet fests suggest that he may be on the threshold of shifting the Overton Window on race.
Public discourse in America has long been held hostage to a species of racist moral blackmail that has made it almost impossible to tell the truth about many central social realities. The President is trying to liberate us from it.
WOKE RACISM
Well before Sigmund Freud formalized the idea of “projectionism”—the defense of one’s own shortcomings and sins by attributing them to others—it was a common theme in classical literature and the New Testament: the ridiculing of the mole on someone else’s nose to hide one’s own boil.
The term projection more or less sums up much of the woke identity politics movement, in which obsessions with racial privilege and tribal exceptionalism are justified by accusing others of just such bias.
For example, the new racism is epidemic among those in the so-called squad, the self-referenced nickname for four media-obsessed, first-term congressional representatives, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who without their daily charges of bias largely would be unknown back-benchers laboring away in obscurity.
They have all taken Joseph Goebbels’ advice.
AN AMERICAN HERO AND DEAR FRIEND IS GONE
Alex Alexiev 1941-2019
A true American hero, great champion of freedom, known to TTPers for his many articles over the years, and one of my dearest friends for 37 years, Alex Alexiev, suffered a sudden massive heart attack on Sunday morning, July 28, and passed from this Earth.
It is hard to cope with the loss of such a friend, such an extraordinary man. Let me tell you about him.
[Note: We are running Alex’s final article, written a few days ago, as a companion piece: Trade War with China? No, It’s Worse! He had no idea it would be his last.]
TRADE WAR WITH CHINA? NO, IT’S WORSE!
For the past several months now, the US media is obsessed with dire predictions of a calamitous trade war between China and the US, following numerous statements by President Trump that the Chinese trade surplus is intolerable.
Indeed, at $506 billion of Chinese exports against only $130 billion of US ones, it does look very unfair. However, things look a bit different if looked at from a different angle.
For the problem with China is, thus, not its surplus per se, but rather the economic system that produces it and here it is the Communist system and not free trade that are clearly to blame.
Trade is just a way of increasing the power of the Chinese Communist Party. Everything that contributes to its aggrandizing is fair and widely practiced – technology theft, discrimination against foreign companies, preferential loans/subsidies to state-owned enterprises, currency manipulation etc.
It is a fool’s paradise though with China’s economy beset with problems that defy easy solutions.
THE NUT SQUAD
HALF-FULL REPORT 07/26/19
You read Michael Goodwin yesterday (7/25) describe how Mueller Disaster Dooms Dems’ Impeachment Hopes, and can read today (7/25) Jack Kelly musing on the weirdness of Mueller Puzzles.
Yes, it’s fun to gloat over a defeat of bad guys trying to do you harm so enjoy the moment – but the President made it clear just how serious the moment is on Hannity last night (7/25).
“This should never happen to another president of the United States again. This is an absolute catastrophe for our country… This was treason. This was high crimes. This was everything as bad a definition as you want to come up with. This should never be allowed to happen to our country again.”
Here we go……
MUELLER PUZZLES
Leftists who tuned in Wednesday (7/24) to watch their hero nail the evil Drumpf were as shocked and dismayed as Dorothy, Scarecrow and Tin Man were when they discovered the great and powerful Wizard of Oz was just a little old man behind a curtain.
Two burning questions emerge from the Dems’ dumpster fire that was Robert Mueller’s testimony to the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees.
Why did Democrats think this was a good idea? Dems negotiated with the former Special Counsel for weeks to arrange for his testimony. Didn’t any of them notice that Mueller’s capacities had, ah, diminished?
Which leads to the second question: Why did Mueller agree to testify? He just destroyed himself. How come?
THAT’S ALL FOLKS! MUELLER DISASTER DOOMS DEM IMPEACHMENT HOPES
Bumblin’ Bob was a train wreck of epic proportions. The fallout is immediate, starting with this: impeachment is no longer an option.
It had a slim chance before Wednesday’s painful slog and no chance after it.
Mueller was that bad, seemingly hard of hearing, often confused and contradicted himself several times.
Although Mueller’s general demeanor was disturbing – he was a stammering, stuttering mess – it was also instructive. He did not project the mental and physical vigor of someone capable of leading the complex two-year probe into Russian meddling, possible Trump collusion and obstruction of justice.
More likely, the 74-year old former FBI director was something of a figure-head for an investigation that was carried out by the team of zealots he assembled.
CHINA’S TECH SECTOR IS IN TROUBLE
[Note by JW: This “must-read” by Rothschild & Della Rocca offers strong evidence of the geopolitical genius of President Trump.]
Perched precariously atop electric motorbikes, swarms of e-commerce couriers zip through China’s cities. For upwards of 10 hours each day, they race to deliver packages and hot meals.
In high-rise office buildings, tech-company programmers are toiling just as hard. Coding frantically to meet a deadline, they hunch over keyboards well into the night.
Although they pull long hours, these workers are the lucky ones. At least they have jobs. Amid a protracted slump in China’s once white-hot tech sector, tech firms are resorting to layoffs and hiring freezes.
Many thousands of young college graduates and blue-collar workers, who used to count on tech-sector employment, are now scrambling to find work.
Just two years ago, the rise of China’s tech sector (often termed its “new economy”) looked unstoppable. Between 2014 and 2017, Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei doubled its revenue, and a whopping 34 Chinese tech startups topped $1 billion valuations. By one forecast, the new economy was on track to create over 1 million jobs annually.
But today, the once-prolific sector has reversed course: startups and tech giants alike have been reeling the past year.
What is going wrong?
DREAM SAFARI
©2019 Jack Wheeler
What’s it like to be this close to a leopard in the African bush? I took this picture (and more below) last week.
Back home, it’s hard to go to sleep now without being serenaded by hippos snorting in the lagoon below your thatched bungalow or hyenas whooping out in the bush. Memories of a Dream Safari like this will remain vivid for the rest of your life.
“Safari” is the Swahili word for “journey.” We associate it with exploring Africa, but the world is full of other places where you can have a life-memorable Dream Safari adventure. And you don’t have to reach remotest Africa or Asia to find them. Let’s talk about one in particular.