Trade Negotiations Are Underway Already

Since the election last week, trade negotiations of a sort have already started.  First, the leaders of Canada and Mexico have both said that they are open to the renegotiation of NAFTA.  For those "experts" who told us how Trump would paralyze North American trade as Canada and Mexico fought with Trump, this should come as welcome news.  It is also just a clear manifestation of reality.  Neither Canada not Mexico could afford a battle with the USA.

Second, the TPP is now dead.  It too will no doubt be subject to renegotiation.  The Obama approach of playing dead will no longer be the one that the USA uses in these negotiations.

Third, the trade front with China is also heating up.  The Chinese newspapers have published editorials and articles describing the counter-offensive that China will launch should Trump impose tariffs on Chinese made goods.  As usual, the financial portion of the mainstream media is in full panic this morning after the article appeared in the Chinese press.  The key here, however, is not that a semi-official Chinese paper is making threats.  We are a long way from Trump imposing tariffs or China retaliating.  The true key is that Trump has certainly gotten the attention of the Chinese.  Instead of staying silent while waiting for Trump to take office, the Chinese are sufficiently worried about what he might do that they are trying to deflect his course already.  The Chinese know that a trade war with the USA would be a disaster for them and it would not be good for the USA either.  The difference now is that for the first time in a while the Chinese also know that the USA will not accept bad deals with them.  Trade will need to be moved to a win-win situation before America will accept the result.  Trump will be fine with the Chinese profiting from trade with America, but that will only be true so long as America also profits from the arrangement.  The days of China wins and America loses which have prevailed under Obama are now officially over.

Fourth, in Europe, both the UK and France have avoided an EU meeting that was looking like it might turn into an anti-Trump forum.  The UK needs to enter into a strong trade pact with America now that Brexit will be starting.  Prime Minister May will not want to alienate our new president. 

All of this is encouraging.

So Where Is The Basis For These Claims?

I watched the interview with Donald Trump on Sixty Minutes last night.  Leslie Stahl asked the President Elect about the black, gays, and women being harassed by Trump supporters.  Trump said he was unaware of the attacks but told his supporters to "stop it".

That got me thinking.  I've seen stories and videos of Trump supporters being attacked by angry protesters.  I've seen coverage of Democrats rioting in a number of cities across this country.  What I haven't seen are stories of anyone actually being harassed by Trump supporters.  The only stories that I have been able to find involved graffiti.  At a school in Manhattan someone spray painted a swastika and the word Trump on a wall.  That is being investigated by the NY authorities as a "hate crime", although to me it seems more like an attack on Trump than on his opponents, especially since this happened in Manhattan where there are essentially no Trump supporters.  There were also two instances of swastikas being painted on buildings in upstate New York.  At least in those locations, there are Trump supporters, but there is nothing that links the graffiti to them.

I looked further.  I found reports of students at the University of Pennsylvania getting nasty text messages from a student from the University of Oklahoma.  There was also a claim that a group of white students knocked down a black woman at Villanova University while chanting Trump's name.  There were no witnesses to this alleged attack.  Meanwhile, the SCLC has said that there have been over 200 reported attacks across the nation, but the SCLC also said that it had not verified any of them.

So what do we really know?  Were there any of these attacks?  Could these claims be real?  Or are these stories like the violence at the Trump rallies that we learned through Wikileaks was actually arranged by Democrats so that they could then condemn Trump?  I truly doubt that many of these things actually happened.  That is not to say that it would be acceptable were this actually happening; it would be completely unacceptable.  Nevertheless, there is too much of this that just rings untrue.

At the same time, it is hard to equate a nasty text message to a crowd of protesters rioting in Portland.  One is clearly worse.

This Gets Coverage?

I just read what is perhaps the most surreal article ever.  It is a report on a push to get president Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court approved during the upcoming lame duck session.

Let's review where we are.  Justice Scalia died about eight months ago.  The Senate majority leader immediately announced that there would be no consideration of any replacement nominee and that the choice would be left to the American people when they voted for president.  Obama, nevertheless, nominated judge Merrick Garland to the post.  The senate ignored the nomination.  Garland did not get a vote or even a hearing.  Finally, the American people selected Donald Trump as president elect.  Further, the voters also kept the senate with a Republican majority.

The idea that the senators will now vote for Garland after refusing to do so for over six months is bizarre.  Indeed, many pundits now say that by refusing to vote for the Supreme Court nominee, the senators handed the election to Trump.  There were a great many voters who said that Supreme Court nominations were key to their vote for president.  There is no way that the senators would, after winning the election, throw away the fruits of that victory.

Portland or Losing Their Minds

Voters in Multnomah County, Oregon went for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump by a margin of 76% to 17%.  Inside the city of Portland which has roughly 85% of the county's population, the Clinton margin was even higher. 

I thought that fact was worth noting after watching the protesters smashing cars and breaking shop windows in Portland.  These people are just taking their rage out on other Hillary voters.  There's an image often used after elections of the losing side organizing a "circular firing squad".  In Portland, they seem to be trying to take the image and bring it to life.

Cuomo and DeBlasio?? Oh My!

The New York Post is pushing the idea that the 2020 presidential election candidate for the Democrats may be either New York governor Andrew Cuomo or the mayor of New York City Bill DeBlasio.  It merits a fast comment.

First, STOP!!!!!  The endless 2016 election just ended this week.  There must be complete silence about 2020 for now.  America needs a rest.  America deserves a rest.

Second, ARE YOU KIDDING?  I know the Post is centered on all things New York, but Cuomo and DeBlasio?  Cuomo will be lucky if he is not indicted in the next two years for corruption.  The Obama appointed US Attorney already got convictions on two of the three most powerful politicians in Albany and there are persistent stories about there being an ongoing investigation aimed at Cuomo.  I don't know who the Democrats will nominate in 2020, but it won't be someone under criminal investigation.  On the other hand, DeBlasio will be lucky to be re-elected mayor.  He is so far left that he makes Bernie Sanders look conservative.  He will never play across America.

I now will stop talking about 2020.  I hope not to even mention that presidential election again until 2019.

Just For Once

Just for once, I agree with Bill Maher.  He said on his show this week that many Americans see the Democrats as a "boutique party of fake outrage and social engineering."  He's right.  Just look at the response to the election.  We have fools marching in the streets to express their outrage.  Many have apparently been paid to participate, although some are genuine.  Still, essentially every American understands that these marches are a futile gesture.  Participation AFTER the election does not change the outcome.  If these people are so upset, they should have been involved BEFORE the election.  The whole thing will soon fade away; most people accept reality after a while.  Still, the entire business once again shows the silly and fake outrage pushed by the Democrats.

And how about all those celebrities who were surely moving out of the USA if Trump won?  Why are they still here?  It was just more fake outrage on display. 

More Media Bias

There are some demonstrations still going on in New York, LA and other cities.  The point of the demonstrators is unhappiness with the results of the election.  It's an immature and pointless response.  The demonstrations won't and can't change anything.  Donald Trump is the President Elect.  Nevertheless, some portions of the mainstream media are really getting into this story as if it were meaningful.  For example, NBC and MSNBC are trying to paint Trump as being under siege by the protesters.  It's amazingly dishonest.  People have to right to march through Manhattan if they want to waste their time doing so.  The point, however, is that the march has no effect at all on Trump.  For NBC, however, that doesn't matter.  In the latest story from that network about the demonstration Saturday afternoon in New York, NBC talks about Trump Tower as the place where Donald Trump is "holed up".  Actually, Trump Tower is the place where Donald Trump and his family live.  He was in his office this afternoon meeting with his team and working on the transition. 

Why is it that NBC can't be honest?  Why can't it be impartial?  If the NBC reporters want to tell us about the protest, that's fine.  I doubt many people care about it, but NBC can still report on it.  It's just wrong, however, for the jerks at NBC to try to paint a phony picture of reality.  They should stop.  They did enough damage during the campaign with their biased stories.  Most likely, Trump would not have won but for the reaction of the American people against the obvious lies of the media.  But it's even worse.  The media sponsored poll after poll that turned out to be wrong.  Then they reported over and over again about those erroneous polls.  Remember three weeks ago, the big story in the mainstream media was that Hillary had clearly won the election and was busy trying to expand the field into as many states as possible and to work to help Democrat candidates up and down the ballot.  Then two and a half weeks later, Hillary lost, the Democrats in Congress lost, the Democrats did not even take back the senate despite having the best possible chance to do so, and the Democrats in state races got creamed.  America knows this; we understand that the media is either delusional or dishonest.  So now, once this has all been revealed, one would think that the mainstream media would be trying to regain the trust of the average American.  They're not.  Instead, the mainstream media is pushing a new dishonest storyline.  To make matters worse, it's a storyline that is OBVIOUSLY dishonest.  Telling lies is bad enough; telling lies that most people can easily see to be lies is just plain crazy.