By Rick Manning

It is time for D.C.’s political pundits to get woke on the economy, while one particularly obnoxious group of wealthy virtue signalers are finding their true selves revealed. 

While the focus in D.C. is rightfully on the fake impeachment being foisted upon America by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, there are some hard economic truths that are amazing and good political news for the President. 

Unemployment remains low as the September unemployment number of unemployed continued to plummet to just over 5.7 million people out of 164 million giving us an unemployment rate of 3.5 percent — a 50 year low.  But to me the important information is how many people who want a job can’t find one — and that is 5.769 million Americans.  It was December of 2000, when our nation last had this few people who were actively seeking employment who couldn’t find work and there were 21 million fewer Americans in the workforce then.  

And in case you are wondering if the job situation has changed direction, the Labor Department reports the number of unemployment insurance claims filed nationwide each Thursday, and this number remains remarkably low with the weekly total reaching 210,000 new claims.  The more reliable four week average was up slightly to 213,750, still an amazingly low number of new applications, meaning that the job market remains at its strongest level in at least half a century.

This matters because there is a swath of voters, primarily women, who are known as security voters.  They don’t want to rock the boat if things are going well, and America is working, people are making more money and inflation is remains extraordinarily low, with September prices flat according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and inflation over the past year increasing only 1.7 percent. 

When voters evaluate the Democratic field, there is not a single candidate who is not pushing sweeping economic changes, exactly the wrong message for the security voters who were the basis of the famous Democratic consultant James Carville’s reminder, “It’s the economy, stupid.” 

And this is why you can ignore polling numbers around the Trump name, because when people pull the curtain to vote in secret, they pretty reliably cast their ballot based upon their own circumstances and security, and 13 months from the election, those circumstances are pretty darn good.

Speaking of circumstances being pretty darn good.  The National Basketball Association has been riding a high with good television ratings with enormous wealth being generated.  The NBA stars have become larger than life as a complaint by Golden State Warrior player Stephen Curry led his shoe company CEO (Under Armour President Kevin Plank) to drop off of a Presidential economic advisory council, because Curry didn’t believe that the President denounced racism strongly enough.

Now that is power, because to Plank, preserving the relationship with the face of his brand far outweighed providing economic advice to the President of the United States.   

Imagine the surprise when the opinionated Curry and the entire NBA leadership from top to bottom, was revealed to be nothing but frauds.  You see, the Houston Rocket franchise’s General Manager made the mistake of tweeting seven words which ripped the façade right off the virtue signaling league, when he posted, “Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong.”

In the aftermath of the Chinese government retaliation against the Donald Trump hating NBA, we have seen the Houston General Manager forced to take down his tweet, Houston Rockets gear pulled from Chinese stores, Disney-owned ESPN posting a map of China indicating dominion over Taiwan and the entire South China Sea, NBA games featuring superwoke LeBron James pulled from Chinese television and the League’s expansion plans and massive revenue increases generated from selling to the billion person Chinese market put in jeopardy.

And this was over a single pro-freedom tweet, imagine if the NBA superstars currently touring China in an exhibition game series were to actually ask about the Muslim concentration camps, the forced organ donations from live victims, the slave labor used to stitch the Nike’s star players make millions off of, and the jailed believers in Christ — persecuted because they were caught with a Bible.

It is enough that Jerry West, whose likeness is used for the NBA logo, should demand that they change it to a picture of Chairman Mao, whose political descendants are now calling the shots for the exposed League.

While the subject of China is on the front burner, remember the 1.7 percent annual inflation rate for the past twelve months, wouldn’t you think that with all the threats about President Trump’s tariffs increasing prices to American consumers that you would eventually see prices jump?  They haven’t, because of one of the very reasons that we have a trade war to begin with, currency manipulation by the Chinese. 

And the perpetually wrong purveyors of tariff doom still don’t get it.  China uses a devaluation of their currency, the yuan, to the dollar as a way of effectively increasing the price of U.S. goods versus the price of Chinese goods around the globe. It is the Chinese people who are eating the cost of tariffs as their money becomes worth less with staple items like the cost of oil rising due to Chinese money manipulation. 

President Trump has told and is expected to tell the Chinese again in a meeting in Washington, D.C. that they must end this currency tariff on U.S. goods along with their on-going theft of U.S. company’s intellectual property in order to end the on-going increasing tariffs on their goods. 

Unlike the NBA, President Trump is punching back against the bullies of Asia and re-balancing our two nation’s relationships. 

And when it comes to basketball, perhaps the continually agitated NBA no-ballers should be reminded that it was President Trump who secured the release of three University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) basketball players who were detained in China a couple of years ago on charges of shoplifting, creating a “Bruinous” international dust up. 

Is it possible that Steph, LeBron, and other NBA millionaires will wake up to the fact that it is their government in Washington, D.C., which is fighting for freedom around the world, while their Beijing benefactors are the evil empire.  Now, that would be truly woke, but that would require them to break the gold chains which blind them. 

Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.

Cartoon: Beijing Bounce

By A.F. Branco

 

Click here for a higher level resolution.

---

Video: Do Trump's trade critics care more about China's economy than America's?

 

To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLLGEAZ-OCk

---

ALG Editors’ Note: In the following featured report from the Washington Times’ Alex Swoyer, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spends $300 for her haircut:

Self-declared socialist AOC splurges on high-dollar hairdo

By Alex Swoyer

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has allowed life in Washington to go to her head — literally.

The self-declared socialist, who regularly rails against the rich and complains about the cost of living inside the Beltway, spent nearly $300 on her hairdo at a pricey salon she frequents in downtown Washington, The Washington Times has learned.

The New York Democrat ventured into Last Tangle Salon on 19th Street Northwest last month and shelled out $80 for a haircut and $180 for lowlights, according to sources familiar with the salon.

A 20% tip would have added $52 to the bill.

Her stylist did not respond to a request for comment about the tip.

A staff member at Last Tangle Salon talked about the lawmaker as if she were a TV superstar, saying “AOC” was extremely nice and even took several selfies with patrons.

“AOC is the Eva Peron of American politics. She preaches socialism while living the life of the privileged,” said Richard Manning, president of Americans for Limited Government, referencing the former first lady of Argentina who was known for dressing in designer gowns and jewels while advocating a socialist agenda.

“There is nothing wrong with spending money to make yourself look better, especially as a personality who depends upon visual mediums for her power. But it is a bad look to spend hundreds of dollars to get your hair done to make a video decrying income inequality,” Mr. Manning said.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez declined to comment.

She could have saved roughly $100 for the same hairstyle at the government-subsidized Capitol Hill barbershop.

Her high-dollar hairdo stands in stark contrast to that of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a former senator from Alabama who is a regular customer at Senate Hair Care Services in the basement of the Russell Senate Office Building.

At that place, open to members of Congress and the public, a men’s cut runs about $20, though men’s haircuts there and everywhere else are cheaper than women’s.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who makes $174,000 a year representing a district that straddles the Bronx and Queens, has supported legislation to give herself and other Congress members a pay raise. She once argued that the congressional salary was too low and that higher pay would discourage corruption.

“Members are paid more than average — but the job requires 2 residences and we can’t take tax deductions for work costs,” she tweeted at the time. “No one wants to be the one to bring up increases, so instead people take advantage of insider trading loopholes & don’t close them for the extra cash.”

She also has complained about the cost of living in Washington, though she lives in a luxury apartment building in the trendy Navy Yard neighborhood, where rent for a no-frills studio apartment starts at $2,000 a month.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has plenty of company in the hair club for extravagant politicians.

Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Republican, once spent $100 on a haircut.

The 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, splurged $600 on a hairdo during the campaign, prompting Vanity Fair to ask in a headline: “Is $600 too much for a haircut?”

Former Sen. John Edwards, who ran for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination and was the 2004 vice presidential nominee, was known to pay more than $500 to his hairstylist. President Bill Clinton’s $200 haircut in 1993 at Los Angeles International Airport made headlines when two of the airport’s runways had to be shut down for nearly an hour during the procedure.

Permalink here.

---