WSJ Again Disappoints

The Wall Street Journal, our last bastion of conservative journalism, has not exactly been kind to the Trump Administration. Friday's lead editorial led with the headline “Trump Stages a Trade-War Retreat.”  Was that really necessary?  Surely the world-class writers on the Journal staff recognize by now Trump’s “Art of the Deal” negotiating tactics, where he asks for the moon, when his goal is to settle for something in the middle, but still an improvement over the status quo. And, to call an agreement with the UK that is to our advantage a “retreat” is disingenuous, and had it appeared in the New York Times, it would have qualified as partisan rhetoric. Granted, Trump’s weaponization of tariffs to reorder international trade is risky, but so is maintaining the current trade deficit. The Administration claims that countries are lining up to cut a deal, and this week’s forum in Switzerland will give us a better indication of whether or not that is true. But market gyrations do not please the Journal’s desire to appease Wall Street’s voracious appetite for easy money and aversion to volatility. Patience has never been an investor virtue, preferring knee-jerk reactions to subtle trends and a herd mentality. Recall, we are only a month after “liberation day”, the market has regained nearly all of its losses despite rampant pessimism, and even the most conservative investment firms are pulling back from their doomsday recession predictions. Patience, my friends. Reassess after Lutnick and Bessent return from the economic forum. And remember, with Trump-style negotiations, everything is in play.

Doll Spin

I never was particularly impressed with Matthew Hennessey’s editorials in the WSJ, but Tuesday’s “Donald Trump’s Two-Doll Problem” was simply absurd. He should consider either engaging the rest of his neurons or otherwise register as a democrat where this sort of spin and idiocy is expected. To take the comment “maybe children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls” out of context is journalistic malpractice. He suggests that Trump is pushing austerity measures to cover for his own disastrous policy decisions. He further indicates that accusing Americans of materialism and having a lot of stuff is the opinion of “snooty Europeans envious of our sustained prosperity.” Wrong analysis, Matty. We are materialistic over-consumers. So what. We drive the world economy. But if you ask me to cut back on some stuff, especially cheap frivolous stuff from China, we can reset international trade and level the playing field…..I’m all in. This isn’t austerity for the long term. This isn’t austerity that requires cutting back on food or necessities. Trump is asking us to reduce the consumption of Chinese goods in favor of American products to balance the enormous trade deficit. Face facts, every dollar sent to China is a dollar working against us. So, for now, buy two dolls instead of 30, but make sure they’re American dolls. And I mean Made in America, because the “American Doll” brand is made in China. There’s no better example of the need for a reset.

With An Economy Of Words

There is nothing more demoralizing than watching our Republic show signs of resurgence only to be opposed by a bunch of intellectually deficient and morally corrupt politically-serving, appointed District Judges. 

Stay In Your Lane WSJ

The WSJ is getting progressively more anti-Trump by the day. I can understand them taking an adversarial view of anything Trump does that affects market returns, but they seem to be attacking on all fronts. To run a front-page headline: “US, El Salvador Won’t Budge on Mistakenly Deported Man” is bowing to the left-wing narrative that this guy is somehow living the American dream, mowing his lawn and coaching youth soccer while raising a family in the suburbs. Baloney! Only recently has it come to light that he impregnated his girlfriend and only married her on the advice of his attorneys when he was picked up on charges of being an MS-13 gang member. Charges that appear to be true, incidentally, including human trafficking. The fear of “rival gangs retaliating against him” narrative is also full of holes, with fantastical reports of his grandmother’s taco stand getting muscled by a gang that exists on US soil, not in El Salvador.

Further, as Marco Rubio points out, he is a citizen of El Salvador and has been rightly returned to his home soil after illegally entering the US. Full stop. He is not a “Maryland Dad,” as the grandstanding Senator Van Hollen would have you believe, and he is, therefore, not your constituent, making his pending PR stunt to Central America particularly annoying to those who are. The judge never said he couldn’t be deported; he said he would not go to El Salvador, making Gaza and Ukraine favored destinations. So, let’s waste more tax dollars on this miscreant and send a jet to pick him up. We can allow him to get off at any Central American country he likes, preferably at 30,000 feet, because this administration is not going to import another illegal immigrant with ties to a terrorist organization into our country. Been there, done that. Those days are over. And the Wall Street Journal should know better. Your conservative readership will demand it.

The Empire State

Did you happen to catch the phenomenally self-important,  yet equally vapid, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pontificating on the definitions and differences between socialism and capitalism?  Completely clueless. So much for her political science degree. Boston University must be so proud. But what is truly disturbing, far beyond her inability to form coherent thoughts, is that in a head-to-head primary contest between her and incumbent Senator Chuck Schumer, she is currently ahead by 19 percentage points in the polling. This on the heels of a poll showing disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo leading Eric Adams in a race for mayor of New York City. What is wrong with New York? Can the radical democrats move any farther left and continue to alienate the rest of the country? Can New Yorkers disgrace themselves any more than they have in electing a cast of abrasive partisans that currently includes Hochul, Raskin, Nadler, AOC, Tish James, Alvin Bragg, and Schumer with a history of scandals perpetuated by Cuomo above, Elliot Spitzer, Sheldon Silver, Eric Schneiderman, and Andrew Weiner?  And recall they elected the carpetbagger Hillary Clinton to the Senate, although she may have been more effective than her replacement, the largely invisible and completely unproductive Kirstin Gillibrand. The Democratic Party needs to do some soul-searching on a national level to recover from the rudderless state of anti-Trump vitriol they are currently using as a party platform. But there is no better place to start than New York.

Shame On You Wisconsin

Wisconsin is such a disappointment. To think the democrats are demonizing Musk who, at great risk to his own business empire, is donating his time and resources to rooting out government corruption and the wasting of taxpayer dollars, yet is being portrayed as somehow taking away entitlements, Medicaid and Medicare in particular, is just a mind-bending concept. The accusations from the left that he is buying votes when democrat candidates have been Soros-funded for years is typically hypocritical.  The democrats are crowing about their political gains, but the same old entrenched tactics won the day. Milwaukee and Madison are Wisconsin’s largest population centers, and like most American cities, they are rife with welfare recipients, government employees, and liberal colleges and universities. Further, despite the DOGE team’s impressive performance on FOX with Brett Baier, the vast majority of the public is oblivious, instead barraged by the mainstream media talking points, the same hysteria that has whipped these mentally impaired leftists to vandalize Tesla dealerships. And exactly how Wisconsin voters were able to elect the decidedly progressive judge Crawford by 10 percentage points but on the same ballot supported an ID requirement for voting with a 25% margin, something that Crawford opposes incidentally, doesn’t make any sense at all. Just the concept that a judge is not impartial, bowing to progressive ideology rather than adhering to constitutional guidelines, is abhorrent. Wisconsin voters should be ashamed if that is at all possible. It increasingly appears that Americans are a product of our own education system and cannot read the handwriting on the wall. 

Democrat Dementia

The Democrats have gone from the ridiculous to the sublime in the throes of their Trump Derangement Syndrome. The Democrats are looking for any foothold to attack the Trump administration, regardless of how absurd it may be. I’m seeing the “Musk as a fascist” theme resurfacing because he proposed we hunt down whoever is supporting violent attacks on his dealerships; Hegseth and Waltz are “unqualified” for mistakenly using an encrypted app that was put in place and supposedly vetted by the previous administration (with no harm done incidentally) and widespread democrat support for rogue district judges opposed to deporting foreign criminals from our country. And somehow, a green card is a license to foment dissent and violent protest

 Somehow, rooting out corruption, waste, and fraud in the government is something to fight against. Further, did anyone on the left watch Brett Baier’s interview with the DOGE team? In a side-by-side comparison of competence, who do you want advising the president….the radical leftists that comprise the “Squad” or these accomplished entrepreneurs? I’ll take the astute businessman over the Marxists every time.  Do you want the folks who got involved in politics to get rich or the rich guys who got involved in politics to make America great again? 

So it’s about time that America realizes that the left does not have their best interests in mind; they’re nothing more than a vocal minority seeking to perpetuate the corruption that feathers their nests at the expense of we the people in the private sector. We just need bigger pumps to drain the swamp.