Saturday, November 30, 2019

BET Founder Says 2020 Election is Trump’s to Lose and Dems Should Rethink Strategy


By Bronson Stocking | Townhall.Com


Source: AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

The founder of cable network BET says the 2020 election is Trump’s to lose and advised Democrats to rethink their approach to President Trump. 

BET founder Robert Johnson told CNBC in an interview, “I think the president has always been in a position where it’s his to lose, based on his bringing a sort of disruptive force into what would be called political norms. I don’t care whether it’s his way he conducts foreign policy, the way he takes on the government agencies and what they do with immigration. He brings his style.”

Johnson went on to criticize Democrats for attacking Trump on style over substance. “Now, a lot of people, particularly those who voted for him and those who will vote for him again in the next election, like that style,” Johnson said. “I think what the Democrats have to do is to be careful not to get caught up in stylistic Trump and more on substantive Trump.”

When the media targets Trump supporters, said Johnson, they only add to the president’s support.

“His ability to dominate the news cycle and get the narrative going about what he said has, to me, sort of a double effect on the Democrats. One, they get all agitated about what he said, and then they go beyond just him. They extend it to his voters, and the voters say “wait a minute. I voted for this guy. I like what he’s doing. You know, why are you picking on me, saying ‘I’m not smart enough;’ ‘I’m sort of a cult?’”

In 2013, Johnson made headlines when the entrepreneur took issue with the stubbornly high black unemployment rate during the Obama administration.

“This country would never tolerate white unemployment at 14 and 15 percent. No one would ever stay in office at 14 or 15 percent unemployment in this nation, but we’ve had that double unemployment for over 50 years.” Johnson lamented in 2013.

The black unemployment peaked at 19.3 percent in Mar. 2010.

Johnson said in 2013 that the challenge was to figure out why the black unemployment rate was so high, warning “if that doesn’t change, somebody’s going to have to pay – 34 million African-Americans are not going to leave the country, millions of African-Americans who don’t have jobs.”

For many blacks, the solution appears to be Donald Trump. Current jobs numbers indicate the black unemployment is the lowest it's ever been since the government began tracking the figure in the early 1970s.

Two recent polls, one conducted by Emerson and the other by Rasmussen, both found around 34 percent of likely black voters support President Trump. If accurate, that’s a big improvement from 2016 when only eight percent of African Americans voted for Trump.

Even the president’s critics concede Trump’s efforts to attract black Americans could spell disaster for the Democratic Party.

“It’s an incredibly emotive election cycle, isn’t it,” Johnson was asked during Friday’s interview?  

“It is, and so what you do is you simply add to his support by trying to make a case that, ‘gee, if Trump is bad and you support Trump, then you got to be bad,’ which is a really silly way to talk to the American people,” Johnson said.

Will the media heed Johnson’s advice? Probably not.

Friday, November 29, 2019

Hong Kong Protesters Thankful for Trump and the U.S. This Thanksgiving


By Bronson Stocking | Townhall.Com


 Source: Twitter/Screenshot

Pro-democracy protesters held a Thanksgiving Day rally to thank the United States and President Trump for signing bills into law on Wednesday that support the demonstrators in their struggle against Beijing.  

The bipartisan bills signed by the president impose sanctions on officials in Hong Kong and China that are responsible for human rights abuses. The bills also require an annual review of the special autonomous status the U.S. State Department grants to Hong Kong during trade considerations. The revocation of that status is a powerful tool to incentivize support of pro-democracy groups in Hong Kong. The legislation also bans the sale of crowd control munitions to Hong Kong that have been used by police against the protesters. 


“I signed these bills out of respect for President Xi, China and the people of Hong Kong,” the president said in a statement after signing the bills. “They are being enacted in the hope that leaders and representatives of China and Hong Kong will be able to amicably settle their differences leading to long-term peace and prosperity for all.”

On Thanksgiving Day, a large crowd of several thousand assembled to express gratitude for the show of support from the United States. The crowd sang the Star Bangled Banner as attendees waved American flags.


The Trump administration and Beijing are currently involved in a trade war and it remains to be seen how the bills signed by the president on Wednesday will play out in the ongoing dispute. When the Senate backed the bill, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said the legislation "violates the basic norms of international law and international relations" and "interferes in China's internal affairs." The government of Hong Kong also warned the bills would harm relations between Hong Kong and the United States, calling the bills "unnecessary and unwarranted."

But the pro-democracy protesters seem to be winning the public's support in Hong Kong. Pro-democracy parties picked up an overwhelming number of seats on Sunday in Hong Kong's district council elections. Seen as a stunning rebuke to Beijing and its supporters in Hong Kong, the elections drew a record turnout in voter participation. The district council races are local, community-related offices. But given the widespread unrest by protestors calling for greater democracy for Hong Kong, the election is seen as a referendum on Hong Kong's current relationship with Beijing.


In July, massive protests erupted after a bill was introduced in the Hong Kong government that would allow for the extradition of Hong Kong citizens to communist China. The pro-democracy groups see the bill as undermining the sovereignty of Hong Kong and the civil liberties of its citizenry. 


As the protests have advanced, protesters have settled around five key demands from the Hong Kong government. First, for the controversial bill to be withdrawn. Second, an investigation into allegations of police brutality and misconduct towards the protesters. Third, the release of all arrested protesters. Fourth, the retraction of the characterization of the protests as "riots." And finally, the resignation of the current chief executive as well as universal suffrage for the chief executive and legislative council elections.

Trump Surprises Troops In Afghanistan On Thanksgiving Day


By Bronson Stocking | Townhall.Com

 

Source: Twitter/Screenshot

President Trump made a surprise visit to troops in Afghanistan on Thanksgiving Day. The president departed Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday evening to make the 13-hour secret flight to Bagram Air Force Base, arriving shortly after 11 a.m. EST.

According to reports, many measures were taken to conceal the president's unscheduled trip. The president took off from an undisclosed airport in Florida on Wednesday night around 7 p.m. EST. to travel to Joint Base Andrews. He then boarded Air Force One, which had been removed from its usual tarmac location and housed inside a hangar. Staff accompanying the president had their cellular devices collected before takeoff and the White House scheduled tweets from the president's Twitter account. 

Traveling the 8,331 miles to the war zone with the president was Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham, National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien and Wyoming Senator John Barrasso. 

President Trump met with Afghanistan President Ashrav Ghani before serving meals to troops, taking pictures and speaking to those gathered at Bagram Air Force Base. 

"There’s nowhere I’d rather celebrate this Thanksgiving than right here with the toughest, strongest, best and bravest warriors on the face of the Earth," the president told the troops.

Trump also announced peace talks with that Taliban have been restarted after the president broke off talks following a bombing in September that killed an American soldier and 11 other people. 

Around 12,000 troops remain in Afghanistan, down from around 14,000 that had been there earlier this year. The president said he plans to bring more troops back from Afghanistan. 

Earlier this week, Vice President Mike Pence surprised troops in Iraq with an early Thanksgiving meal. 

The president is now back to the United States. 

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President Trump speaking with U.S. troops in Afghanistan in a surprise visit for Thanksgiving: "There’s nowhere I’d rather celebrate this Thanksgiving than right here with the toughest, strongest, best and bravest warriors on the face of the Earth."


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US troops in Afghanistan break out chanting USA! USA! as President Trump surprises them for Thanksgiving



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#NEW: Pres. Trump during a surprise Thanksgiving visit to the troops in Afghanistan, says peace talks with the Taliban have resumed:

"The Taliban wants to make a deal... and they only want to make a deal because you're doing a great job.”



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Thanksgiving Day, Afghanistan, 2019



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U.S. President Donald Trump eats dinner with U.S. troops at a Thanksgiving dinner event during a surprise holiday visit to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, November 28, 2019. REUTERS/Tom Brenner



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President Trump visited our troops at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.

No press pool.

We have an amazing President!


Thursday, November 28, 2019

All that glistens isn't gold on Black Friday




Shoppers browse the aisles during a Black Friday sale at a Target store in 2018. 
AP Photo/John Minchillo

Top of Form
Bottom of Form
“A man will never love you or treat you as well as a store. If a man doesn’t fit, you can’t exchange him seven days later for a gorgeous cashmere sweater.” (Sophie Kinsella)

Like trucks driving down the highway stuffed with turkeys for Thanksgiving meals, stores across our nation are loading up with “too good to be true” deals for a dubious tradition, Black Friday; the day after Thanksgiving. People across the U.S. have been preparing a wish list before, during and after Thanksgiving church services and meals. They hope to get a “steal of a deal” on everything, on the busiest shopping day of the year. Black Friday is the only day in the entire world that people trample over others for sales exactly one day after giving thanks for everything they already have.

Black Friday has not always been a great day for consumers. The term Black Friday once marked the crash of the U.S. gold market in 1869. Two notoriously ruthless Wall Street financiers, Jim Fisk and Jay Gould, conspired to purchase as much of the nation’s gold as they could buy. Their vision was to drive the price through the roof and resell it for huge profits. On the Friday that their sinister connivance unraveled, it sent the stock market reeling and bankrupted everyone from Wall Street to farmers. It took the U.S. economy over a decade to fully recover from their apocalyptic scheme.

At the time when Fisk and Gould concocted their plan, the currency of trade was gold. But America had gone off the gold standard during the Civil War and printed millions in government greenbacks to fund the war. Competing currencies of gold and greenbacks were tendered and Wall Street had formed a Gold Room where they were traded. Gould calculated that if he could buy enough gold he’d be in control of the market. Then he and his crooked gang could resell it for an astronomic profit.

“There are magicians’ skills to be learned on Wall Street, and I mean to learn them.” (Jay Gould)

Gould knew the only thing standing between him and making a killing on the gold market was the White House. Since the beginning of President Ulysses S. Grant’s tenure in office, the Treasury used its extensive gold reserves to buy greenbacks from a willing public. Therefore the government controlled the value of gold. When it sold gold, the price went down, but when they hoarded it the price went up. If anyone tried to manipulate the market, the Treasury could derail them by selling large quantities of gold to keep prices low. Gould had to find a way to hoodwink the U.S. Treasury.

Gould heard opportunity knock the day he met Abel Corbin, a D.C. insider who was married to one of Grant’s sisters. Corbin was a small time speculator that Gould knew could be persuaded to join him in executing his diabolical plan. Gould deposited $1.5 million in Corbin’s trading account. Then Corbin used his fraternal influence with Grant to help get Daniel Butterfield appointed as the new sub-treasurer in the exchange. Gould then put $1.5 million in Butterfield’s personal account. Corbin was designated to convince Grant to keep gold prices high so they could pull off their cheme.

“If I denied all the lies circulated about me I should have no time to attend to business.” (Jay Gould)

Gould and his comrades had been buying small amounts of gold for months. But the day he told his conspirators the fix was in, he and his army of robber barons opened up their pocket books and executed with a “Midas touch”! Jim Fisk, Gould’s number one confidant, quickly dropped a cool $7 million in the gold market. Within hours, gold’s value climbed higher than Ben Franklin’s kite flew in 1752. Within a few weeks the price of gold spiked to $160. Wall Street speculators and gold traders were caught in Wall Street with their pants down. Rumors spread rapidly about Gould’s hyjinks as traders and citizens called for the Treasury to intervene and sell off more of its gold reserves. Fisk and Gould owned a combined $60 million in gold; three times as much as the state of New York.

Bob Dylan wrote, “If you live outside the law you must be honest.” Like most “swindlers,” Gould’s greed was his demise. Corbin assured Gould that Grant would let the crisis work its course and do nothing. But with the public crying foul and his numbers tanking, Grant told the Treasury officers to investigate his brother-in-law and Gould. Like any true conman, Gould never told Fisk or the other crooks. He started selling a little gold each day while most of his mob was sent to jail.

“Whenever I am obliged to get into a fight, I always wait and let the other fellow get tired first.” (Jay Gould)

President Grant finally interceded and demanded Treasury Secretary George Boutwell to open his vaults and flood the market. The news sent Wall Street into a tailspin. Within minutes, the inflated gold prices plummeted to $133. The stock market dropped 20 points and severely damaged many of Wall Street’s most venerable firms. Thousands of investors were financially ruined. Foreign trade came to a standstill. Many corn and wheat farmers saw the value of their harvests dip by 50 percent. Yet both Gould and Fisk avoided spending a single night in jail by leveraging their political connections.

For years, the fateful day Gould and Fisk hijacked the U.S. gold market was known as Black Friday.

In 1952, a New York City Management Manual resurrected the term to describe workers who called in sick the day after holidays. It resurfaced in 1961 when a newsman quipped, “The disruptive pedestrian traffic at the ‘after Thanksgiving sales’, was worse than the chaos on ‘Black Friday’.” This phrase was soon adopted by retailers to promote sales and sell off inventory the day after Thanksgiving.

"Whoever said money can't buy happiness, simply didn't know where to go shopping." (Bo Derek)

Today, Black Friday is the biggest shopping day of the year. Despite attempts to control the crowds of shoppers, injuries are common. People are trampled during stampedes when doors first open. In 2008, an anxious crowd of 2,000 at a New York Wal-Mart broke the door down and crushed an employee to death. In 2010, a Wisconsin woman was arrested at a Toys 'R' Us because she shot at a woman who had cut in front of her in line. Outside a Wal-Mart in Southern California, a man was fatally wounded during a Black Friday sale in 2011 for flipping off another shopper. A woman was killed at a Macy's store in New Jersey by another shopper in 2016 when they argued over a “one only” sale appliance.

To consumers, Black Friday is synonymous with huge sales. But they soon find out “all that glistens isn’t gold.” According to NerdWallet, this is the worst day of the year to shop. Deal hunters wait for hours only to discover there are no “deals” at all. Stores advertise loss-leaders but only a few are in stock. Others lure customers in for deals that never arrive. Crowds are treacherous, and store help cannot be found. People end up buying poor quality junk they don’t need. Most of the time, people go home loaded with regularly priced products, simply so to justify they wasted their entire day off.

“Only the fools buy in early. A wise trader avoids bad investments by being patient.” (Jay Gould)

P. T. Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute." The first Black Friday was a bad day for consumers in 1869. Today it is a bad day for them too. For all those who feel compelled to brave the crowds the day after Thanksgiving, keep in mind the antics of Jim Fisk and Jay Gould on that first Black Friday. Only a few crooks profited from their too good to be true scheme, at the expense of American investors. It was caveat emptor then, and it is caveat emptor now. So this Friday let’s all remember:

“A bargain is something you can't use at a price you can't resist.” (Franklin Jones)

Contributing Columnist William Haupt III is a retired professional journalist, author, and citizen legislator in California for over 40 years. He got his start working to approve California Proposition 13.


Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Who Are the Racists?


By Walter E. Williams | Townhall.Com


 Source: AP Photo/John Minchillo

Former presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke said that racism in America is "foundational" and that people of color were under "mortal threat" from the "white supremacist in the White House." 

Pete Buttigieg chimed in to explain that "systemic racism" will "be with us" no matter who is in the White House. 

Senator Cory Booker called for "attacking systemic racism" in the "racially biased" criminal justice system.

Let's follow up by examining Booker's concern about a "racially biased" criminal justice system. To do that, we can turn to a recent article by Heather Mac Donald, who is a senior fellow at the New York-based Manhattan Institute. She is a contributing editor of City Journal, and a New York Times bestselling author. Her most recent article, "A Platform of Urban Decline," which appeared in Manhattan Institute's publication Eye On The News, addresses race and crime. She reveals government statistics you've never read before.

According to leftist rhetoric, whites pose a severe, if not mortal, threat to blacks. Mac Donald says that may have once been true, but it is no longer so today. To make her case, she uses the latest Bureau of Justice Statistics 2018 survey of criminal victimization. Mac Donald writes: "According to the study, there were 593,598 interracial violent victimizations (excluding homicide) between blacks and whites last year, including white-on-black and black-on-white attacks. 

Blacks committed 537,204 of those interracial felonies, or 90 percent, and whites committed 56,394 of them, or less than 10 percent. That ratio is becoming more skewed, despite the Democratic claim of Trump-inspired white violence. 

In 2012-13, blacks committed 85 percent of all interracial victimizations between blacks and whites; whites committed 15 percent. From 2015 to 2018, the total number of white victims and the incidence of white victimization have grown as well."

There are other stark figures not talked about often. According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting for 2018, of the homicide victims for whom race was known, 53.3% were black, 43.8% were white and 2.8% were of other races. In cases where the race of the offender was known, 54.9% were black, 42.4% were white, and 2.7% were of other races.

White and black liberals, who claim that blacks face a "mortal threat" from the "white supremacist in the White House" are perpetuating a cruel hoax. The primary victims of that hoax are black people. We face the difficult, and sometimes embarrassing, task of confronting reality.

Mac Donald says that Barack Obama's 2008 Father's Day speech in Chicago would be seen today as an "unforgivable outburst of white supremacy." Here's what Obama told his predominantly black audience in a South Side church: "If we are honest with ourselves," too many fathers are "missing -- missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men." Then-Senator Obama went on to say, "Children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison."

White liberals deem that any speaker's references to personal responsibility brands the speaker as bigoted. 

Black people cannot afford to buy into the white liberal agenda. White liberals don't pay the same price. They don't live in neighborhoods where their children can get shot simply sitting on their porches. White liberals don't go to bed with the sounds of gunshots. White liberals don't live in neighborhoods that have become economic wastelands. Their children don't attend violent schools where they have to enter through metal detectors. 

White liberals help the Democratic Party maintain political control over cities, where many black residents live in despair, such as Baltimore, St. Louis, Detroit, Chicago.

Black people cannot afford to remain fodder for the liberal agenda. With that in mind, we should not be a one-party people in a two-party system.

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

This powerlifting 82-year-old made an intruder regret breaking into her home


By Elizabeth Wolfe and Douglas S. Wood, CNN


(CNN)A man broke into the Rochester, New York, home of an 82-year-old woman. It didn't end well -- for him.

Willie Murphy said she was getting ready for bed Thursday night when a man began pounding on her door, urging her to call an ambulance for him, CNN affiliate WHAM reported.

Murphy told WHAM she called the police but wouldn't let the man in her house. Then, she said, he became angry and broke through the door.

"It's kind of semi-dark and I'm alone, and I'm old. But guess what, I'm tough," she said, bearing her muscular arms. "He picked the wrong house to break into."

Murphy is an award-winning bodybuilder who said she works out at her local YMCA almost every day.

As Murphy tells it, she used a barrage of household items to attack the intruder, beginning with her own table.

"I took that table and I went to working on him," she said. "And guess what? The table broke."

Unphased, Murphy said, she used the metal legs of the table to keep hitting him.

After jumping on him a couple times, Murphy ran to the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of baby shampoo and squirted it on the man's face as he tried to get up.

It didn't end there. Next, she said, she took a broom and whacked him some more.

By that time, the intruder was ready to leave. Though Murphy said she can deadlift 225 pounds, she struggled to drag the man out of the house.

"He wants to get the heck out of there. And I'm trying to help him get out of the house, but he's too heavy. I can't move him. He's dead weight."

At that point, the police arrived in response to Murphy's earlier call.

"So they come in," she said. "He's laying down already because I had really did a number on that man. I'm serious."

The man was put in an ambulance. Murphy thinks he was probably relieved to be out of the house.

"I think he was happy when he went in the ambulance because I sent him in the ambulance. Yes, I did."

Monday, November 25, 2019

HUGE! Black Support for President Donald Trump HITS 34% in BOTH Emerson and Rasmussen Polls!


By Jim Hoft | Gateway Pundit


 Don’t expect to see this reported in the liberal mainstream media!


________________

RELATED ARTICLE

Trump Approval Among Blacks Tops 34 Percent in Emerson Poll

BY PETR SVAB



Audience members at President Donald Trump’s MAGA rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., on March 28, 2019. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

Approval of President Donald Trump rose to 34.5 percent among black registered voters in a recent Emerson poll.

The number is notable because only 8 percent of blacks voted for Trump in 2016, according to Cornell University’s Roper Center.


The poll also showed significantly higher approval among Hispanic voters—38.2 percent in November compared to 26.2 percent the month earlier.

Overall, the poll showed Trump’s approval at 48.3 percent, up from 43.2 percent the month before.

A Rasmussen poll indicated 34 percent support among likely black voters.

Follow Petr on Twitter: @petrsvab

Sunday, November 24, 2019

Poll finds sharp swing in opposition to impeachment among independents


BY JONATHAN EASLEY | The Hill


A new national survey finds independent voters leading a sharp swing in opposition to impeachment, the second major poll to produce those findings this week.


The latest national poll from Emerson College finds 45 percent oppose impeaching President Trump, against 43 percent who support it. That’s a 6-point swing in support from October, when 48 percent of voters supported impeachment and only 44 percent opposed.

More importantly, the poll shows more independents now oppose impeachment than support it, a significant change from Emerson's polling in October. The new poll found 49 percent oppose impeachment compared to 34 percent who support it. In October, 48 percent of independents polled supported impeachment, against 39 percent who opposed.

Since October, Emerson has found Trump’s job approval rating jump by 5 points, from 43 percent to 48 percent.
...

A Marquette University survey of Wisconsin, a battleground state that Trump turned red in 2016 for the first time in decades, found 40 percent think the president should be impeached and removed, against 53 percent who do not think so.

In October, 44 percent favored impeachment and removal and 51 percent opposed.

Only 36 percent of independent respondents in Wisconsin support impeachment and removal.

The Marquette pollster wrote that the new survey “finds consistent, if sometimes modest, shifts in public opinion away from support of impeachment and toward supporting Trump in next year’s presidential election.”

The Marquette survey found Trump leading Biden by 3 points after trailing him by 6 points in October. The president also leads Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) by 3 points and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) by 5 points.

The Emerson College poll of 1,092 registered voters was conducted between Nov. 17 and Nov. 20 and has a 2.9 percentage point margin of error. The survey includes 713 voters who were reached by landline and 379 who took part in an online panel.

[EDITOR"S NOTE: Polls should be of likely voters, which would show how those who are likely to vote, not just those who simply registered to vote. Such a poll would more likely be more favorable to President Trump and show higher approval numbers and opposition to impeachment.]