Month: July 2018

Since it’s safe to assume most people in South Africa don’t follow the U.S. economic trends on a daily basis, they probably don’t realize that the U.S. economy is growing rapidly — with second quarter growth potentially being double that for all of last year.

They probably don’t realize that U.S. unemployment rates are as low as they’ve been in many years, that the U.S. has added more than 285,000 manufacturing jobs over the past year, that construction jobs increased by almost the same amount, and the unemployment rates among blacks and hispanics have declined over the past year.

If it’s safe to assume most South Africans don’t follow U.S. economic trends, then it’s also safe to assume former President Barack Obama wasn’t about to let them in on the good news.

Instead, the former president used a speech Tuesday in Johannesburg to paint a picture of a U.S. economy that was frail, benefitting only the wealthiest of the wealthy, and one that would eventually result in many workers losing their jobs to automation.

“The biggest challenge to workers in countries like mine today is technology,” Obama said.

TRENDING: MSNBC Thinks Trump’s Finally Lost Support, Then They Interview Their Worst Nightmare

“And for once solidly middle-class families in advanced economies like the United States, these trends have meant greater economic insecurity, especially for those who don’t have specialized skills, people who were in manufacturing, people working in factories, people working on farms.”

Obama spoke at an event honoring the 100th birthday of Nelson Mandela. He championed Mandela’s fights for human rights and his role in ending white rule in the country via Apartheid.

The former president said market-based economies have helped rid the world of most dictatorships, which has improved the cause of human rights around the world. But many of those economies have also increased the world’s income inequality, and he said the first way to address that is to change the world’s power structures.

“Whatever laws may have existed on the books, whatever wonderful pronouncements existed in constitutions, whatever nice words were spoken during these last several decades at international conferences or in the halls of the United Nations, the previous structures of privilege and power and injustice and exploitation never completely went away,” Obama said. “They were never fully dislodged.”

He also floated the notion of a universal income — taxpayer-funded stipends to low-income citizens — as one of the new ideas needed to keep market-based economies healthy and immune to authoritarian rule.

“It’s not just money that a job provides; it provides dignity and structure and a sense of place and a sense of purpose. And so we’re going to have to consider new ways of thinking about these problems, like a universal income, review of our workweek, how we retrain our young people, how we make everybody an entrepreneur at some level. But we’re going to have to worry about economics if we want to get democracy back on track.”

While not mentioning him by name, Obama took a number of jabs at President Donald Trump — as well as Trump’s supporters — during his speech.

“Within the United States, within the European Union, challenges to globalization first came from the left but then came more forcefully from the right,” Obama said. “You started seeing populist movements – which, by the way, are often cynically funded by right-wing billionaires intent on reducing government constraints on their business interests – these movements tapped the unease that was felt by many people who lived outside of the urban cores; fears that economic security was slipping away, that their social status and privileges were eroding, that their cultural identities were being threatened by outsiders, somebody that didn’t look like them or sound like them or pray as they did.”

RELATED: Obama Tells Others They Don’t Need Giant Houses, Spends $8 Million on His

Obama also decried calls for stricter immigration controls.

“In the West’s current debate around immigration, for example, it’s not wrong to insist that national borders matter; whether you’re a citizen or not is going to matter to a government, that laws need to be followed; that in the public realm newcomers should make an effort to adapt to the language and customs of their new home,” Obama said.

“Those are legitimate things and we have to be able to engage people who do feel as if things are not orderly. But that can’t be an excuse for immigration policies based on race, or ethnicity, or religion. There’s got to be some consistency. And we can enforce the law while respecting the essential humanity of those who are striving for a better life. For a mother with a child in her arms, we can recognize that could be somebody in our family, that could be my child.”

He also said the world can’t solve its problems if it doesn’t agree on what the problems are. He made reference to the U.S. leaving the Paris Climate Accord as one example.

“I can’t find common ground if somebody says that climate change just isn’t happening, when almost all the world’s scientists tell us it is,” he said. “I don’t know where to start talking to you about this. If you say it’s an elaborate hoax, where do we start? Too much of politics today seems to reject the very concept of objective truth. People just make stuff up. They just make stuff up.”

There are some objective truths that Obama and progressives also seem to reject, and the failure to address some of those truths — like the crush of illegal immigration, the tax laws that restrained business growth, and an education system that has failed to prepare many youngsters for the changing technologies — is why Democrats are on the outside of the White House looking in.

Facebook has greatly reduced the distribution of our stories in our readers’ newsfeeds and is instead promoting mainstream media sources. When you share to your friends, however, you greatly help distribute our content. Please take a moment and consider sharing this article with your friends and family. Thank you.

For the past two years, the consistent narrative put forward by the liberal media and Democrats is that President Donald Trump is a “puppet” of Russian President Vladimir Putin — with whom he “colluded” to “steal” the 2016 election — and thus has been exceptionally “weak” toward Russia in regard to foreign policy decisions.

CNN has unquestionably been at the forefront of those pushing that narrative — when they aren’t obsessively talking about porn star Stormy Daniels — so it was a bit of a surprise when a CNN host took the time to detail just how tough Trump has actually been toward Russia while interviewing an anti-Trump Democrat member of Congress.

According to The Daily Caller, the surprising admission that undermines the network’s own narrative came during the Wednesday episode of “CNN Newsroom with Poppy Harlow,” during which Harlow confronted Democrat Florida Rep. Ted Deutch about the current reality of U.S.-Russian relations.

“I get the rhetoric, we all hear how the president sort of ‘appeases’ Vladimir Putin, and we don’t hear him criticize Vladimir Putin,” stated Harlow.

“But would you concede that his administration’s actions against Russia — be it the sanctions, be it the selling of anti-tank missiles to Ukraine — are tough actions on Russia; arguably tougher actions on Russia, some would say, than the Obama administration’s?” she asked of Deutch.

TRENDING: MSNBC Thinks Trump’s Finally Lost Support, Then They Interview Their Worst Nightmare

“Poppy, we had to drag the White House kicking and screaming to impose sanctions on Russia,” replied Deutch.

“If I could clarify, of course having a good relationship with a country is always in our interest, but it’s not in our interest to go on the world stage and to suggest that we’re rolling over for a country that hacked our election, that commits cyberwarfare, that interferes in governments all throughout the world,” he continued.

“And to do so next to a murderous dictator like Vladimir Putin, no, that is absolutely not in our interest at all,” he added.

Later, on the same program, Harlow brought on CNN’s senior national correspondent Alex Marquardt to “fact check” Trump’s claim that “nobody has been tougher on Russia” than him and his administration.

Marquardt ran through a litany of just some of the significant actions taken by the Trump administration — by no means all-inclusive — that would obviously be deemed as “tough” on Russia by anyone with a bit of intellectual honesty, a list that was accompanied by a graphic that spelled it all out for CNN’s viewers.

Those tough anti-Russia actions would include arming Ukraine with lethal weapons — something the Obama administration steadfastly refused to do — the indictment of 13 Russian nationals and affiliated entities accused of meddling in the 2016 election and the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats in response to a nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy living in the United Kingdom.

In conjunction with the expulsion of diplomats, the Trump administration also forced the closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle. Later, another seven Russian oligarchs in Putin’s inner circle were sanctioned, as well as 12 companies they either controlled or owned outright, along with some 17 senior Russian government officials.

Left unmentioned by CNN, but certainly well within the realm of “tough” actions against Russia, was the absolute destruction of a Russian mercenary unit in Syria, in which an estimated 200 Russian soldiers were believed to have been killed or wounded in the battle.

And who could forget Trump’s insistence that NATO allies increase their defense spending to guard against potential Russian military escapades?

RELATED: CNN’s Don Lemon Melts Down on Air, Asks if Trump Can Even Be POTUS After Summit

Furthermore, Trump has hit Russia hard financially by dramatically increasing American energy production — Russia’s only real profitable and exportable resource — and has worked diligently to get European nations to make deals to obtain their energy needs from America instead of Russia.

President Trump may not publicly criticize Putin and Russia as much as his detractors would like, but there is no denying that his actions have been exceptionally tough on Russia, so much so that even CNN now has to admit as much.

This admission of Trump’s tough action — in conjunction with the lingering lack of tangible evidence to support allegations of “collusion” — pretty much lays to rest the whole “Trump is soft on Russia” nonsense that the media has been pressing as a narrative for the past two years — and good riddance.

Facebook has greatly reduced the distribution of our stories in our readers’ newsfeeds and is instead promoting mainstream media sources. When you share to your friends, however, you greatly help distribute our content. Please take a moment and consider sharing this article with your friends and family. Thank you.

Friends and family often ask me why I enjoy politics as much as I do. “It’s important,” I tell them, “and it’s a privilege,” which it is. But sometimes it’s also so silly that its entertainment value far exceeds films, television, or any other outlet.

Take, for instance, Thinx label Icon Undies’ somewhat uninformed and but legit hilarious attempt at self-promotion by latching onto the upcoming confirmation fight over Brett Kavanaugh. They sent care packages to the women in the US Senate in order to help sustain them through a filibuster. Er … who wants to tell them?

It’s no secret that Brett Kavanaugh’s election to the Supreme Court could mean an about-face for women’s personal agency over our oft-leaky bods. That’s why we sent filibuster Endurance Packages to our female senators (even though we know an actual filibuster is less than likely). Complete with our moderate-absorbency bikini undies in Spice, tote bags, Aloha protein bars, and bottled water, the packages are meant to help our reps withstand long stints on the senate floor (sans bathroom breaks) defending women’s access to comprehensive, affordable, and quality healthcare. Our gesture might sound silly, but our motivation stems from a genuine dedication to providing women around the world with accessible, quality health information and care. Simply put, women’s health and wellbeing shouldn’t be a partisan issue.

An actual filibuster isn’t just “less than likely,” it’s flat-out off the table. Why? Because in November 2013, Harry Reid got most of the women receiving these packages to support his “nuclear option” to prohibit filibusters on presidential appointments. Then the same women backed Chuck Schumer’s attempt to filibuster Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation last year, prompting Mitch McConnell to go nuclear in return, prohibiting filibusters on Supreme Court nominations.

Had Democrats just, er, held their water on Gorsuch, these Filibuster Endurance Packages might have come in handy. Maybe Icon needs to come up with a male version of the same product line, right after they catch up to current Senate rules.

Michael Graham’s amused, but at least he helped Icon correct a grave injustice:

This is embarrassing…and on so many levels.

The feminist/activist underwear company Thinx, in an effort to oppose Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, is sending ” filibuster Endurance Packages to our female senators,” they announced yesterday. …

Thinx lists all the women of the US Senate who’ll be receiving their anti-Kavanaugh care packages. Only one problem. There’s a name missing: NH’s Sen. Maggie Hassan.

Is this an oversight, or a statement about their view of Hassan’s feminist bona fides?

Icon sent a package off to Hassan shortly afterward, so she’s well prepared for a filibuster that will never take place. But at least Thinx and Icon got to demonstrate their product, right along with their ignorance. If there’s no such thing as bad publicity …

They’ll get a chance to use the products soon, too. Chuck Grassley says the Kavanaugh nomination will move to the floor in 70 days or less:

According to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, who will oversee the upcoming confirmation hearing, Kavanaugh should be fitted for his robe and confirmed to the Supreme Court within 70 days.

“Judge Kavanaugh is one of the most respected jurists in the country. He’s among the most qualified candidates to ever come before the Senate. I look forward to carefully reviewing his record,” Grassley said during a Committee business meeting Thursday morning. “Our process in the Senate Judiciary Committee will be thorough, modern, and efficient. We’ll use newer tools to review more material than we ever have before. All members of this committee will have far greater visibility into his record and judicial thinking than they have had with any previous nominee. And with this extra visibility, I can foresee no reason to stray from the timelines of previous high court nominations. We completed our work on the nomination of Justices Kagan and Gorsuch within 70 days. So, I expect to do the same in this case.”

Grassley wants to keep this process moving — and Democrats should as well. Obstructing the vote in any way that delays it to closer to Election Day will just remind Trump voters why they threw in with him two years earlier. That might turn out badly for Icon endurance-package recipients like Heidi Heitkamp and Claire McCaskill, who would be better off with Kavanaugh’s confirmation in the rear-view mirror.