That said, the President should be capable of finding less dramatic and disruptive methods of achieving his defensible goal of reducing our involvement with China. And while we are on the subject, we believe that President Trump’s boosting of tariffs on Chinese products (and on some from other countries as well) is a means to an end. It is not that he loves tariffs, but that is the most effective way of getting the Chinese to pay attention. For too many years and through too many administrations, America has allowed China to get away with those things listed above, as well as undercutting our costs of production so dramatically as to make it unprofitable for American companies to compete, allowing the Chinese to flood our markets with their goods. It is high time that America acted to turn things around.
By John Shaffer For a billionaire who loves business and should know what’s best for the American economy, President Trump has an unfortunate habit of tweeting and texting in such a way as to tank the stock market indices. It happened a couple of times in the last two weeks, most recently on Friday when he “ordered” US businesses to find a source other than China for its manufacturing and supply chains. We couldn’t agree more with the intent of finding a non-Chinese source, because we have never thought it wise to do business with Communist countries, for the exchanges with them are unlike those between free economies in the free world. The Chinese government controls, directly or indirectly, the major levers of the Chinese economy, and their influence goes far beyond the things that everyone complains about - the currency manipulation, the theft of intellectual property, and the enlisting of US and European companies to “cooperate” in ways those companies would justifiably balk at in their home countries.
That said, the President should be capable of finding less dramatic and disruptive methods of achieving his defensible goal of reducing our involvement with China. And while we are on the subject, we believe that President Trump’s boosting of tariffs on Chinese products (and on some from other countries as well) is a means to an end. It is not that he loves tariffs, but that is the most effective way of getting the Chinese to pay attention. For too many years and through too many administrations, America has allowed China to get away with those things listed above, as well as undercutting our costs of production so dramatically as to make it unprofitable for American companies to compete, allowing the Chinese to flood our markets with their goods. It is high time that America acted to turn things around. BY JOHN SHAFFER All the people who are mad all the time about all of the things President Trump says or does have more fodder this week because of his latest outrage, relative to which we quote directly from the notice of proposed rulemaking issued by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services: “The US Department of Homeland Security proposes to prescribe how it determines whether an alien is inadmissable . . . because he or she is likely at any time to become a public charge. . . Aliens who seek adjustment of status or a visa, or who are applicants for admission, must establish that they are not likely at any time to become a public charge, unless Congress has expressly exempted them . . . DHS proposes to require all aliens seeking an extension of stay or change of status to demonstrate that they have not received, are not currently receiving, nor are likely to receive, public benefits."
This proposed rule has everyone hot under the collar, but the current law states that “an alien is inadmissable if, at the time of application for a visa, admission, or adjustment of status, he or she is likely at any time to become a public charge.” It goes on to explain that DHS “seeks to better ensure that aliens subject to the public charge inadmissability ground are self-sufficient, i.e., do not depend on public resources to meet their needs, but rather rely on their own capabilities, as well as the resources of family members, sponsors, and private organizations.” And before the Perpetually Outraged among us become more so, the exclusion under this provision would apply only to those who used welfare, etc. for more than twelve months during a three-year period. BY JOHN SHAFFER The news was filled with reports of several mass shootings in the past couple of weeks, and filled to an even greater extent it seems with reactions to them. Judging from those reactions that come from the Democrat candidates for president, the progressive politicians, and the liberal commentators, here are the most important things to remember, according to them:
. . .If a mass shooting occurs while a Republican is President, the shooting is his fault. If a mass shooting occurs while a Democrat is President, the shooting is the fault of some Republican somewhere, if not all of them. And even though it is hard to find a mass shooter who is a member of the NRA, the NRA is to blame for all shootings. As we have pointed out many times, these folks express far more anger at Republicans in general, the President specifically, and the NRA repeatedly than they ever do at the shooters themselves; and they never put any blame on weak enforcement of laws, or “turn ‘em loose” judges and juries that look hard for reasons not to incarcerate violent criminals. To sum up: President Trump is to blame. Republicans are to blame. The NRA and other gun rights organizations are to blame. The three groups listed in the second sentence above probably would like us to stop right here, for, they feel, what more needs be said? However, we think there is quite a bit more to say. For one thing, if President Trump is to be blamed because a shooter believed there are too many illegal immigrants in the USA, why wasn’t Sen. Bernie Sanders blamed for the shooting of Rep. Stephen Scalise on the ballfield a couple of years ago? After all, the shooter was a “Bernie volunteer.” Or the Dayton shooter last week – he was a strong supporter of Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Why is she not held to blame? And before we go any further, we want to make it completely clear that we are not blaming Senators Warren or Sanders for those shootings, nor should they be blamed, nor did they have anything to do with the shootings. But, in the same light, neither did President Trump have any association with the El Paso shooter, and the President should not be blamed for that shooting. There is a belief, popular among the progressives and the news media, that all mass shooters are “angry white males.” Certainly, some of them are, but if, for what it’s worth, one looks at the faces of all 98 persons charged with shooting four or more people in a single incident in 2019, one will see faces that are black, white, brown or yellow – Hispanics, African-Americans, and Caucasians, with the “white males” constituting fewer than 40% of those charged. In the past decade there also have been quite a few committed by immigrants from the “Third World,” which should not be used to slur all immigrants from the third world but should be considered as evidence that not all mass killings are committed by “white males.” |
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