SandyPundits.com: July 2018

The struggle to reduce America’s trade deficit with China is still in its beginnings, but the early signs are that America may be winning the battle. The Chinese stock market is down far more than the U.S. stock market so far this year, and U.S. companies are reporting generally strong second quarters. Meanwhile, China is flooding its capital markets with liquidity and depreciating its currency to keep its exports moving and has stopped talking about tariff retaliation - at least for the moment. The Chinese government stopped publishing monthly trade figures in March without explanation, possibly a sign that Beijing does not want the world to see how its exports are suffering. [more...]

Sexual Misconduct Allegations Against Les Moonves Stun Hollywood

Ronan Farrow, who already won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking the Harvey Weinstein story, has now unveiled another detailed account, which involves alleged sexual misconduct on the part of the singular most powerful and influential media executive in the world, Les Moonves. According to Farrow’s New Yorker article, six women accuse the chairman and CEO of CBS Corporation of various forms of sexual harassment and intimidation, and dozens more claim that they suffered abuse at the company as well. Farrow’s piece also documents a culture of sexual harassment at CBS, focusing specifically on CBS News, the former employer of another figure who had a career end due to sexual misconduct allegations, Charlie Rose. [more...]

The Democrat Future Isn’t Socialist, It’s Crazy

They don’t want socialism, they want Trump dead.

The socialists are having a moment. At least if you believe the media. But if the socialists were really having a moment, their big show wouldn’t be a 28-year-old birdbrain whose big achievement was beating a boring white guy in a Hispanic district he didn’t even live in. If you’re going to take over the Democrats, you need something more to show for it than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or a senile socialist who came in number 2 in the primaries and then again in the DNC. [more...]

The Ominous New Wall Around America

A new wall against emigrants has just been erected on America’s borders, but few citizens are aware of this invisible barrier. This is not the wall President Donald Trump promised. This new wall does nothing to keep illegal aliens out. It also does nothing to prevent invading illegals from collecting social benefits virtually from the moment they arrive – thereby picking the pockets of American taxpayers. This new wall is a barrier not to immigrants but to emigrants, designed to stop wealthy targeted taxpaying citizens from departing the United States. President Obama authorized the IRS to revoke the passport of any taxpayer whom the IRS arbitrarily deems to have “seriously delinquent tax debt.” In our analysis of 19 little-noticed government traps designed to loot American citizens, we warned that the IRS now has the power to capriciously shut off anyone’s passport at the push of a computer button. [more...]

Google Unphased by $5 Billion Fine

By Michelle Seiler-Tucker

The European Union has fined Google $5 billion for violating their antitrust rules - specifically, by forcing manufacturers of Android phones to install the Google search app and the Chrome Web browser. For years, the EU has battled tech companies like Google to comply with regulations - last year even fining Google $2.72 billion for violations. More recently, the EU fined Google $5 billion, setting a world record for the highest antitrust penalty. If Google doesn't change its business practices, the cost could grow even higher, with penalty payments added after 90 days. Google intends to appeal the EU’s decision. [more...]

A Cohen Scorned

On the latest edition of REVOLUTION_The Podcast... we examine the strategy of Michael Cohen: what is he up to? Does he want a pardon - or a deal with prosecutors? What motivates him - revenge against the Trumps or his own personal resurrection? What does he really know - and is this why Trump is reported to be in a "dark mood"? [more...]

Wednesday, July 25, 2018

7-26-18 Excellent Guests for Your Show

1. Michael Stumo: New Remedies for U.S. Farmers and Ranchers

2. Adam Andrzejewski: Meet the Texas Teachers $100,000 Club - 7,300 Six-Figure Salaries Cost Taxpayers $903 Million

3. Sally Pipes: Blame Democrats - Not Trump - For Sabotaging Obamacare

4. Kerry Lutz: San Francisco’s Open Sewer Policing

5. Jeff Ferry: Other Nations Following U.S. Lead on Steel Tariffs

New Remedies for U.S. Farmers and Ranchers

By Michael Stumo

USDA announcement a good first step. More strategy needed.

The Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) expressed support for today’s U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) announcement of aid for U.S. farmers and ranchers. After the Trump administration’s recent imposition of tariffs on China’s hacking, cyber espionage, and forced technology transfer, Beijing responded with punitive tariffs aimed at fairly traded goods in America’s agricultural sector. The USDA plan provides $12 billion for three programs to address China’s retaliation. [more...]

Meet the Texas Teachers $100,000 Club - 7,300 Six-Figure Salaries Cost Taxpayers $903 Million

By Adam Andrzejewski, Author of “Operation Drain the Swamp”

Do public schools in Texas pay $232,000 for coordinating PE classes? What about paying $340,000 to a high school music teacher and $127,000 to a librarian? Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found 7,327 Texas public school administrators, athletic directors, teachers, and other employees pulled down six-figure salaries costing taxpayers nearly $1 billion. In fiscal year 2017, superintendents earned as much as $450,000; “executive directors for assessment and compliance” received up to $302,820; and principals made as much as $313,870. [more...]

Blame Democrats - Not Trump - For Sabotaging Obamacare

By Sally Pipes, President & CEO of the Pacific Research Institute

Premiums for health insurance plans on Obamacare's exchanges will rise an average of 15 percent next year, according to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has blamed President Trump and congressional Republicans for the rate hikes – and for "deliberately sabotaging our health care system." Schumer is half right – Obamacare's insurance markets have indeed been sabotaged. But Schumer and his fellow Democrats are the saboteurs. They're the ones who wove Obamacare's incoherent web of mandates, which are the real reason insurance premiums are soaring. [more...]

San Francisco’s Open Sewer Policing

By Kerry Lutz

There’s an epidemic in SF of public defecation and discarded needles. The misguided lobotomized San Francisco mayor London Breed has just the solution, educate the homeless to clean up after themselves. It’s absolutely brilliant. Maybe we can train the homeless to bathe regularly and take their soiled clothing to the dry cleaners, too. Perhaps it will be so effective, we can finally convince them that they’ll be better off living in a home than on the streets. Leave it to a liberal to fail to comprehend a problem and then propose education as the solution. [more...]

Other Nations Following U.S. Lead on Steel Tariffs

When the Trump administration imposed 25% tariffs on steel imports in March, some other nations loudly criticized the move. Now - surprise, surprise - they are shifting gear - and jumping on the tariff bandwagon. Both the European Union and Canada have taken steps towards blocking excessive imports of steel into their markets. The European Union announced last week that it would levy a 25% tariff on all steel imports above the average level of steel imports between 2015 and 2017. The EU said this is necessary because steel imports into the EU, which rose by over 60% between 2013 and 2017, were set to rise further this year as the U.S. tariffs take hold and steel from major exporters gets diverted into Europe. This, the EU said, could have negative consequences for EU steelmakers and their workforces (i.e., job loss). Meanwhile, north of the border, Canada is also considering restrictions. [more...]

Monday, July 23, 2018

7-24-18 Expert Guests for Your Show

1. Daniel Greenfield: All the President’s Hacks - Media Fake News Fueled Obama’s Watergate

2. Lowell Ponte: Why the Media are Losing Their Minds

3. Michael Stumo: Whose Trade War is it Anyway?

4. Jeff Ferry: Other Nations Following U.S. Lead on Steel Tariffs

5. James Hirsen: Roseanne is Back with an Unfiltered Internet Show

6. John LeBoutillier: Helsinki Analysis

All the President’s Hacks - Media Fake News Fueled Obama’s Watergate

FISA application shows how the media allowed Obama to eavesdrop on Republicans.

When Hillary Clinton cites the “intelligence community assessment” to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the presidential election, she’s really repeating her own lie, that her campaign created, rolled through the media and the government, which used it to spy on the Trump campaign, and then finally became an “assessment” under orders from Obama carried out by political allies like Clapper and Brennan. The media, which once boasted of exposing Watergate, had played a key role in Obama’s Watergate. [more...]

Why the Media are Losing Their Minds

Many in our media are now going insane because Hillary Clinton – and her media comrades – lost. President Trump is succeeding; and he appears likely to lead the Republican Party to victory in the 2018 elections and to continue dismantling the leftist policies of media darling President Obama. What the media find most galling, however, is that – through their own high-handed arrogance and stupidity – they helped make Donald Trump president. The mainstream media gave candidate Trump $2 billion worth of free airtime, the New York Times grimly admits. Their plan was to give Trump nearly all the free airtime that would have been spread among 16 Republican contenders, most of whom on paper had more political credentials and experience than he did. [more...]

Whose Trade War is it Anyway?

By Michael Stumo

I was asked, after the U.S. Trade Representative announced tariffs on another $200 billion of Chinese goods, whether I would admit that we are now in a trade war. China started the trade war in 1994 with currency devaluation and state-directed capitalism. Then got better at it. 16% growth per year. 10% growth per year. We believed that they wanted to be like us. That they wanted to be democratic... capitalistic... an open society. We believed their accession to the WTO would ensure that process. That belief was catastrophically wrong. Old beliefs die hard. Even when faced with persistent contrary facts. U.S. leaders believed it... for years. We are now responding to China's 24-year old trade war. Read the USTR 301 report. Read the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission reports. Rebut them if you can. We started nothing. We need to get good at trade wars... or trade conflicts... or better yet "strategic trade." [more...]

Other Nations Following U.S. Lead on Steel Tariffs

Roseanne is Back with an Unfiltered Internet Show

Samantha Bee used a terribly profane pejorative to describe the president’s daughter, and Whoopi Goldberg treated an established legal professional and Fox News host in a reprehensible manner. Neither television personality suffered any real fallout for their inappropriate and offensive behavior. In stark contrast, as a result of a single tweet posted during personal non-working hours, Roseanne Barr had her television series taken away from her. As a testament to her resilience, Roseanne has decided not to abandon her audience or surrender the opportunity to speak her mind. [more...]

Helsinki Analysis

On the latest edition of REVOLUTION_The Podcast... we look at the strange and odd behavior of President Trump at the Helsinki summit - and since. What really happened in that private, two-hour meeting with Putin? Why the secrecy - even from his own staff? Were there agreements reached that we do not know of? Why is Trump now back-tracking on a daily basis? And why is there now going to be a second Trump-Putin summit in the White House in just two months? [more...]

Monday, July 16, 2018

7-17-18 Great Guests for Your Show

1. James Hirsen: Social Media Memes Obscure Bombshell Revelations in Strzok Testimony

2. Adam Andrzejewski: Trump Needs a “Bridge to Nowhere” Moment on Spending

3. Lowell Ponte: Fight 'Richism' by Embracing Your Inner Entrepreneur
4. Michelle Seiler-Tucker: Uber is the Way of the Future?

5. John LeBoutillier: Hell in Helsinki

Social Media Memes Obscure Bombshell Revelations in Strzok Testimony

Peter Strzok, the former Chief of the Counterespionage Section of the FBI, recently testified before two House committees about the explicit and clear animus that he expressed toward then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. He did so while simultaneously showing his utter devotion for then-candidate Hillary Clinton, via tens of thousands of text messages with his then-paramour FBI attorney Lisa Page. Under the oversight function with which Congress is charged, it must determine whether the manifest bias exhibited in Strzok’s text messages influenced his work on three very important investigations that rank among the most serious in modern history. [more...]

Trump Needs a “Bridge to Nowhere” Moment on Spending

By Adam Andrzejewski, Author of “Operation Drain the Swamp”

There is no shortage of potential savings in today’s bloated federal budget. Former President Ronald Reagan cut spending by $15 billion through 133 separate rescissions in 1981 and cut another $16 billion in 1986 through 245 separate cuts. Neither former Presidents Barack Obama nor George W. Bush offered any rescissions packages, so Trump’s attempt at this method should be welcomed. But the process doesn’t matter as much as the product and end result. Voters want to see fiscal sanity in Washington. Trump should use every tool at his disposal – from Twitter to rescissions – to change the trajectory on spending. [more...]

Fight 'Richism' by Embracing Your Inner Entrepreneur
By Lowell Ponte

Americans should take a stand against a form of discrimination that violates human rights and divides our society. This discrimination is “richism,” hatred of the rich, an invidious kind of hatred and confiscatory taxation promoted by leftist politicians, ideologues, and demagogues. Like racism, “richism” attacks people for something in their genetic blueprint, scientists are finding. We find racism unfair because it attacks people for traits caused by their DNA, such as skin color. [more...]

Uber is the Way of the Future?

By Michelle Seiler-Tucker

Imagine yourself five years from now. Are you still driving yourself to work each morning? Uber and Lyft are trying to change the way we travel; and transportation as we know it may be changing sooner than you think. Driving yourself may be a thing of the past. Uber is quickly becoming a verb synonymous with travel. [more...]

Hell in Helsinki

On the latest edition of REVOLUTION_The Podcast... we explore the Trump-Putin Summit in Helsinki: why the private one-on-one meeting? Why the secrecy? What are they up to? Who is calling the shots? Why is Trump at war with NATO and Angela Merkel and Theresa May? What role does the Mueller probe play in all of this? [more...]

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

7-10-18 Expert Guests for Your Show

1. Kerry Lutz: Make Border Security Great Again - Privatize it!

2. Adam Andrzejewski: Trump Needs a “Bridge to Nowhere” Moment on Spending

3. Lowell Ponte: Who Owns the Weather?

4. Daniel Greenfield: The Inauthentic Flip-Flopping of Bernie Sanders

5. Bruce Thornton: Will Our Current Political Conflicts Turn Violent?

Make Border Security Great Again - Privatize it!

By Kerry Lutz

The media continually informs us that there’s a crisis at the U.S. southern border. However, little is being done about it. President Trump has his ideas and the Congress appears completely unwilling to act. Parts of the Wall are being built, but it can’t happen soon enough to quickly impede the flow of illegals. Therefore, it’s time to take an approach that always works when it’s tried - unleash the power of capitalism to solve this intractable problem. It’s time to privatize border enforcement. [more...]

Trump Needs a “Bridge to Nowhere” Moment on Spending

By Adam Andrzejewski, Author of “Operation Drain the Swamp”

Who Owns the Weather?

We used to think of weather as an Act of God, and of terrible storms or droughts as a sign that a nation’s rulers had sinned, lost the “Mandate of Heaven,” were suffering divine punishment, and ought to be replaced. Iran, unwilling to acknowledge God’s hand behind its current punishing drought, is blaming someone else – Israel. The Jewish State, said Iran’s Civil Defense chief Brigadier General Gholam Ridha Jalali days ago, has been using cloud seeding or other technologies to steal Iran’s rain and snow. [more...]

The Inauthentic Flip-Flopping of Bernie Sanders

"Open borders? No, that's a Koch brothers proposal," Bernie Sanders snapped. "You're doing away with the concept of a nation state, and I don't think there's any country in the world that believes in that." ... "What right-wing people in this country would love is an open-border policy. You know what youth unemployment is in the U.S. today? If you're a white high school graduate, it's 33 percent, Hispanic 36 percent, African American 51 percent. You think we should open the borders and bring in a lot of low-wage workers, or do you think maybe we should try to get jobs for those kids?" That was three years ago. Bernie’s final surrender came after dodging a question on CNN about abolishing ICE. After the backlash, he went even further, issuing a statement urging that we "abolish the cruel, dysfunctional immigration system we have today.” Open borders had gone from a right-wing position to a Bernie position. [more...]

Will Our Current Political Conflicts Turn Violent?

By Bruce Thornton

President Trump’s recent string of wins - especially the victories in the Supreme Court decisions - has incited the Democrat “resistance” to even loonier excesses of rhetoric and rudeness. Celebrities indulging juvenile vulgarities, boorish protesters harassing cabinet members in public spaces, the Twitterverse smoldering with calls for violence and a “summer of rage,” and the buffoonish Representative from California Maxine Waters calling for even more public harassment: all have some people worrying that we are on the track of escalating violence that will turn the “cold civil war” hot. Count me as skeptical for now. As bad as today’s political discord may seem, American history from its beginnings has been filled with worse political conflict and violence, from Shays’ Rebellion to Bleeding Kansas, from the Wall Street bombing to the Haymarket Riot. And having spent more than forty years in the university, the nursery of leftism and today’s parlor pinks, I see few people with the gumption to actually back their blustering threats with risky action. [more...]

Monday, July 9, 2018

Hollywood Meltdown over Roe v. Wade

When it comes to subject matter that is outside the leftist box, Hollywood just can’t endure any factual information coming to light, as witnessed by the massive overreaction by the entertainment elite to a pro-life project that is currently in production.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the film, which deals with the backstory of the landmark decision that legalized abortion in America, Roe v. Wade, is being shot in Louisiana. Its working title is “1973,” a reference to the year of the Supreme Court decision that polarized the nation. The left is particularly rattled over the abortion issue right now since President Trump is naming a conservative nominee to the Supreme Court.

Nick Loeb, a banking heir who formerly dated actress Sofia Vergara, is directing the movie and began filming in mid-June. He told the Hollywood Reporter that his court battle with Vergara over access to the couple’s frozen embryos prompted him to do the film. “I have my own pro-life issue going on with my fight over embryos, but no one has really told the whole truth about Roe v. Wade in a film,” Loeb said. [more...]

Thursday, July 5, 2018

7-5-18 Fascinating Guests for Your Show

1. Daniel Greenfield: Sex, Lies & the Deep State

2. Lowell Ponte: The Coerced Funding of Democratic Candidates

3. Michelle Seiler-Tucker: Should Americans Stop Owning Cars?

4. Joseph Tartakovsky: The Culture That Sustains America’s Constitution

5. Bruce Thornton: The Recovery of True Freedom

Sex, Lies & the Deep State

At the heart of the effort to bring down President Trump were two affairs. Unlike the bizarre lies about Moscow hotel rooms and prostitutes in the Steele dossier that was used by the Clinton campaign and its allies to smear President Trump and generate an investigation against him, these affairs truly took place. And they didn’t just expose the malfeasance of four people, but of a corrupt political culture. The affairs between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page in the FBI, and between Senate Intelligence Committee security director James Wolfe and New York Times reporter Ali Watkins, did more than betray the spouses of Strzok, Page and Wolfe. They also betrayed the duties of the two men and two women. The affairs were not private matters. The two illicit sexual relationships were also illicit political arrangements. [more...]

The Coerced Funding of Democratic Candidates

As Democrats fall into powerlessness, this Fourth of July echoes with new signs of their desperation and defeat. A week before Independence Day, the U.S. Supreme Court removed the chains that government union bosses had used for eight decades to enslave public workers. Those union bosses extorted dues and other payments from government employees, then gave their money to Democratic candidates. The High Court recognized that almost a third of government employees are Republicans or Republican-leaning independents coerced into funding Democrats. This betrayed all taxpayers, because union donations often elect the very politicians who will sit opposite them at the bargaining table, and who owe their election to union cash. It has been a vast money-laundering operation in which politicians let unions extort dues, and unions bankroll politicians. [more...]

Should Americans Stop Owning Cars?

By Michelle Seiler-Tucker

Electric car maker Tesla Inc. has delivered on its CEO’s promise to build a lower-priced car at a rate of 5,000 per week by the end of June. Every day there’s more news about the inevitable arrival of autonomous vehicles. At the same time, more people are using ride-hailing and ride-sharing apps, and the percentage of teens getting their driver’s license continues to decline. Given these technologies and social changes, it’s worth asking: Should Americans stop owning cars? [more...]

The Culture That Sustains America’s Constitution

By Joseph Tartakovsky

Since 1789 the average life span of national constitutions world-wide has been 19 years, according to scholars at the University of Chicago. Meanwhile, “We the People of the United States” are now well into the third century under our Constitution. We’ve lived under the same written charter longer than any people on earth. We’ve had regular federal elections every two years, uninterrupted even by the Civil War. Yet America’s Founders had serious doubts about the durability of their “experiment.” You might think America’s track record in the subsequent 200 years would inspire greater confidence. Yet many people today feel, as they have after many fraught elections, that the president is either a savior or the harbinger of doom. So it’s worth reflecting on why the Constitution has endured. [more...]

The Recovery of True Freedom

By Bruce Thornton

President Trump is fighting back. He has cut back on regulations, returned money to the people, taken on the lickspittle media that shills for Leviathan, appointed Constitutionalist judges to the courts, is poised to add another to the Supreme Court, and daily scourged and scorned the corrupt deep-state functionaries who have perpetuated one of the most dangerous usurpations of federal power in recent history. As a result, Trump has taken the first steps necessary for restoring our freedom and autonomy: fighting the federal government and attacking its hubristic powers. Whether he and ‘we the people’ can continue the fight for freedom, not just in our politics but in our daily lives, remains to be seen. But let’s take a moment to appreciate that we now have the best chance since Ronald Reagan to achieve that aim. [more...]

Tuesday, July 3, 2018

7-3-18 Expert Guests for Your Show

1. Adam Andrzejewski: Trump's Lean White House 2018 Payroll On-Track to Save Taxpayer's $22 Million

2. David Horowitz: Naples News Wrongfully Smeared Congressman DeSantis in Partisan Hit Piece

3. James Hirsen: Hollywood Aligns with Dems to Try and Get Rid of ICE

4. Jeff Ferry: How the Dollar Exchange Rate Can Help U.S. Agriculture

5. John LeBoutillier: The Ramifications of Supreme Court Confirmation

Trump's Lean White House 2018 Payroll On-Track to Save Taxpayer's $22 Million

By Adam Andrzejewski

President Trump’s White House payroll has 374 employees - that's 95 fewer staffers than Barack Obama at the same point in their presidencies. The Trump White House workforce runs 20 percent leaner. White House staff experienced 39% turnover during the last twelve months. Of the 377 employees last year, only 229 remain. Most that left were quickly replaced. This year not only did the president maintain a lean staff, he cut the total payroll budget from $35.7 million (2017) to $35.2 million and further honed the books. In FY2015, Barack Obama’s payroll was much larger and exceeded $40.9 million with 477 staffers. [more...]

Naples News Wrongfully Smeared Congressman DeSantis in Partisan Hit Piece

Naples News reporter Ana Ceballos shunned all journalistic integrity with a misleading, defamatory article about Congressman DeSantis and the David Horowitz Freedom Center

Ana Ceballos’s recent piece lies about Congressman Ron DeSantis and slanders the David Horowitz Freedom Center and makes most fake news look good by comparison. Ceballos claimed that DeSantis, in an appearance at the event the Freedom Center holds every year at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, had, among other sins, “suggested killing Muslims.” [more...]

Hollywood Aligns with Dems to Try and Get Rid of ICE

The “Abolish ICE” movement has dramatically morphed from a position that was held by a socialist fringe to a political slogan that is embraced by significant national Democratic office holders and candidates. The notion of doing away with ICE has profound ramifications with regard to national security, law enforcement, and border integrity. ICE was formed following 9/11 - the same time period during which the Department of Homeland Security was created. The functions of several border and revenue enforcement agencies were consolidated into ICE, resulting in it becoming the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security. [more...]

How the Dollar Exchange Rate Can Help U.S. Agriculture

Some agricultural commodities have seen price declines in recent weeks due to uncertainty over international trade relationships. There is a worrying drop in spot corn and soybean prices now as the commodity markets react to the trade conflict between the U.S. and China. In the long term, agricultural prices are determined by fundamental forces of supply and demand, such as weather and population growth. Another underappreciated influence on agricultural prices is the foreign exchange value of the dollar. A strong dollar makes agricultural commodity prices decline. A weak dollar exerts significant upward pressure on commodity prices. [more...]

The Ramifications of Supreme Court Confirmation