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News

Will Trump cultists apologize for their laziness and ignorance, as Trump reverts to leftism?

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Donald Trump and his friends, the Clintons
Donald Trump and his friends, the Clintons

Here is the latest from The Hill.

Excerpt:

In a reversal, Donald Trump expressed openness to raising the federal minimum wage during an interview on Wednesday.

“I’m looking at that, I’m very different from most Republicans,” the presumptive GOP presidential nominee told CNN Wednesday about the prospect of increasing wages.

“You have to have something you can live on. But what I ‘m really looking to do is get people great jobs so they make much more money than that, much more money than the $15.”

The federal minimum wage is $7.25, but labor groups have been pushing for it to be raised to $15.

During a November debate, Trump voiced opposition to raising the minimum wage.

“I hate to say it, but we have to leave it the way it is,” he said during the debate.

Who expected Trump to be a leftist on economic issues? Anyone with two brain cells to rub together, that’s who.  You could tell from his record, from his political donations, and other indicators that the man was a Democrat on economic issues. Everyone who did their homework on the candidates knew that. We all knew that he wanted to raise taxes on the most productive people, that he wanted to raise minimum wage, that he didn’t want to reform the entitlements that are bankrupting the country, he thinks using eminent domain to take private property to benefit big business is a great idea, he wanted to increase agricultural subsidies, and so on. Conservatives reject Trump, and continue to reject Trump, because Trump takes the wrong positions on economic issues.

Here is Dr. Greg Mankiw, a professor of economics at Harvard University, explaining what economists across the ideological spectrum agree on.

He writes:

The recent debate over the stimulus bill has lead some observers to think that economists are hopelessly divided on issues of public policy. That is true regarding business cycle theory and, specifically, the virtues or defects of Keynesian economics. But it is not true more broadly.

My favorite textbook covers business cycle theory toward the end of the book (the last four chapters) precisely because that theory is controversial. I believe it is better to introduce students to economics with topics about which there is more of a professional consensus. In chapter two of the book, I include a table of propositions to which most economists subscribe, based on various polls of the profession. Here is the list, together with the percentage of economists who agree:

  1. A ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available. (93%)
  2. Tariffs and import quotas usually reduce general economic welfare. (93%)
  3. Flexible and floating exchange rates offer an effective international monetary arrangement. (90%)
  4. Fiscal policy (e.g., tax cut and/or government expenditure increase) has a significant stimulative impact on a less than fully employed economy. (90%)
  5. The United States should not restrict employers from outsourcing work to foreign countries. (90%)
  6. The United States should eliminate agricultural subsidies. (85%)
  7. Local and state governments should eliminate subsidies to professional sports franchises. (85%)
  8. If the federal budget is to be balanced, it should be done over the business cycle rather than yearly. (85%)
  9. The gap between Social Security funds and expenditures will become unsustainably large within the next fifty years if current policies remain unchanged. (85%)
  10. Cash payments increase the welfare of recipients to a greater degree than do transfers-in-kind of equal cash value. (84%)
  11. A large federal budget deficit has an adverse effect on the economy. (83%)
  12. A minimum wage increases unemployment among young and unskilled workers. (79%)
  13. The government should restructure the welfare system along the lines of a “negative income tax.” (79%)
  14. Effluent taxes and marketable pollution permits represent a better approach to pollution control than imposition of pollution ceilings. (78%)

If we could get the American public to endorse all these propositions, I am sure their leaders would quickly follow, and public policy would be much improved. That is why economics education is so important.

The ones in bold are the ones that Trump denies.

A person cannot be a conservative and a supporter of Donald Trump – the two are mutually exclusive. Conservatives are people who do understand basic economics, and Trump supporters are people who do not understand basic economics. There is no overlap.

A friend of mine who is being asked by Trump supporters why she will not support Trump posted this article from the American Thinker.

It says:

[…]I am not over the Constitution, although apparently many are, because they have thrown in with a man who never mentions it and often runs afoul of it.  Donald Trump was born “over” the Constitution and still is.  He’s never been concerned with it.  New York values don’t intersect with the Constitution.  No, I am not over the idea of liberty, and thus I’m not quite over the fact that the Republican nominee is a man totally unfamiliar with this concept and a man who never ever looks at increased liberty as the answer for out of control government. Ever.

[…]When crony capitalism is destroying our free market, does Donald want to stop government from picking winners and losers? NO! He doubles down on ethanol subsidies.  He obfuscates the issue of eminent domain.  And he rails against trade, not even considering the obvious conclusion that the big stick of tariffs is centralized planning and government picking winners and losers on steroids.

[…]Trump is the establishment.  His big check to party boss and establishment poster child Mitch McConnell has barely even cleared yet — a donation he followed up by insulting on Twitter those stupid Kentuckians who were willing to forgo McConnell’s crony gravy train to his home state in favor of a principled man like Matt Bevin.  Trump brags he has been giving to Republicans lately, but these donations are to establishment Republicans running against outsiders!

[…]Alexander Hamilton said “if we must have an enemy at the head of Government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of his foolish and bad measures.”  He was right.  Many of you haven not heeded that lesson.  I have, and I am proudly not over the nomination of big government New York liberal Donald J Trump.

In order to support Trump, conservatives would have to value insults and clowning above the Constitution and economics. We’re not willing to do that – although apparently many others are.

News

Department of Justice goes after North Carolina

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Gay activist vandalizes pro-marriage sign
Gay activist vandalizes pro-marriage sign

Fox News reports:

The U.S. Justice Department says a North Carolina law that limits protections to LGBT people violates federal civil rights laws.

The Obama Administration agency on Wednesday put North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory on notice that that state officials must confirm by Monday that they will not comply with or implement the law called House Bill 2.

A letter from the Justice Department obtained by The Associated Press said the law violates Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination in education based on sex. That could lead to North Carolina losing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal school funding.

That’s what people who voted for Obama voted for.

Let’s review the North Carolina law again, since the mainstream media has been deliberately misrepresenting it to push the gay agenda.

Here are a couple of myths about the law that everyone should know about:

The law affects all public bathrooms in North Carolina.

Mainstream media reporting about North Carolina’s HB 2 has largely stated that the law prevents transgender individuals from using public bathrooms throughout the state that don’t correspond with the gender on their birth certificates.

Although the law does affect state government-managed bathrooms, many media organizations have not noted in their reporting that businesses and other private institutions across the state are still free to create their own bathroom policies.

A New York Times report following the passage of the law in March states that the legislation is a “wide-ranging bill barring transgender people from bathrooms and locker rooms that do not match the gender on their birth certificates.”

Apparently that statement alone was enough to fool the Acton Institute’s Peter Johnson, a libertarian-leaning conservative who wrote an op-ed published by The Federalist on Monday. Johnson’s op-ed implied that the law applies to all public restrooms in the state.

After getting much heat for mischaracterizing the law from conservatives like Heritage Foundation’s Ryan Anderson, Johnson wrote a follow-up piece to explain that he was led to a faulty conclusion about the law thanks to the wording in the aforementioned New York Times article

“I formed my opinion based on mainstream media characterizations of the law,” Johnson wrote in his follow-up post.

He also included excerpts from The Washington Post and CNN. CNN reported that the law “puts in place a statewide policy that bans individuals from using public bathrooms that do not correspond to their biological sex.”

The law forces businesses to comply.

In his initial op-ed, Johnson also wrote that one of the reasons he opposed the law was because businesses should be allowed to set their own bathroom policies.

However, the law explicitly protects businesses’ rights to create their own bathroom policies and protects businesses from being punished by local governments for not allowing biological men into women’s restrooms or vice versa.

This means that the Planet Fitness in Charlotte is still free to open its men’s and women’s locker rooms to transgender individuals.

“In the [first] article, I stated that the bill ‘bars people in North Carolina from using bathrooms that do not match their birth sex,'” Johnson explained in his correction piece. “This is incorrect. The law only regulates bathroom usage in public facilities — not in private businesses.”

That sounds like a sensible law to me. But now the federal government is going use our taxpayer dollars to punish North Carolina, because there’s not much else going on and these government workers need something to do other than surf porn at work all day.

Commentary

This suprises no one: Trump won Indiana with votes from fake Christians

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Trump does well with registered Democrats, and in Democrat states
Trump does best with registered Democrats, and in states run by Democrats

Here is an interesting article from The Stream.

Excerpt:

Last night’s Indiana primary was the final showdown for the GOP nomination, and unfortunately for #NeverTrump, Ted Cruz lost to Donald Trump. Trump won half the self-identified evangelical vote (though he did better with those who weren’t evangelicals).

A CBS exit poll shows how the votes played out and brings one striking feature of this race to light: the less frequently a Republican voter went to church, the more likely he or she was to vote for Trump, and vice versa.

Cruz won those who attend church weekly (which includes more than once a week), while Trump won occasional churchgoers. As Ross Douthat has explained, active Christians aren’t going for Trump — but cultural Christians are.

Trump also does well with registered Democrats, and he outperformed in blue states like New York – where his favored policies have been in effect for some time.

One woman who supports Trump is divorced from an adulterous ex-husband, with several fatherless children and is currently sexually involved with a non-Christian man. The non-Christian man has no college degree and is unemployed, so it’s no surprise that he is a Trump supporter. The woman also has no college degree, but she fancies herself a serious Catholic. If you actually ask her questions about her faith, you’ll find that her Catholicism is just “cosmic butler” Catholicism. Her “faith” is all non-cognitive spirituality and mysticism. She hopes that God will give her goodies in this life and imagines that her poor life choices result in “unexpected” disasters because the Devil is after her. Do what you feel like, act surprised when it all explodes and you go on welfare, and pray that God will help you to win the lottery, so that all the craziness works out in the end.

I think a lot of people who make poor judgments about others based on appearances and emotions, like this divorced woman, are very impressed with Trump. He looks good, he’s confident, he says entertaining things. Who needs to look for past achievements? If he says he everything will be great, then his words are better than actual demonstrated ability. Confidence and inherited wealth matters more to them than achievements. His sinfulness is not a problem to them – they’re embroiled in the same sin themselves. Christianity is just a label they thrown on an otherwise non-Christian life. If they are willing to slap the label on themselves, then what’s wrong with slapping the “Christian” label on Trump? Or the “conservative” label? They have no ability to make judgments about someone else’s fruits, since they aren’t Christian or conservative themselves. It’s not a surprise to me that fake Christians and fake conservative voters cannot spot a fake Christian and a fake conservative like Trump. If they could, they would be impugning their own selves.

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