Trump Took a Page Out of the Reagan Economic Policy Play Book on Monday

Donald Trump laid out his economic plan at the prestigious Detroit Economic Club on Monday. Trump said he will cut taxes across the board and will put America first in all his economic decisionmaking : "Americanism, not globalism, will be our new credo....I want to jump-start America,” he said, in a speech that won a lot of applause and some standing ovations. Trump also blamed Hillary Clinton for supporting trade deals that he claimed resulted in the collapse of Detroit's world-famous automobile industry : “Detroit is the living, breathing, example of my opponent’s failed economic agenda. Every policy that has failed this city and so many others is a policy supported by Hillary Clinton.” Trump went on to tie Hillary to her husband Bill Clinton's disastrous NAFTA free trade deal that he also described as destroying jobs in upstate New York -- something he said she did nothing to repair as New York Senator. “A vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for TPP – and it’s also a vote for NAFTA. This is a strike at the heart of Michigan, and our nation as a whole,” he added, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics figures showing that before NAFTA, there were 285,000 auto workers in Michigan, compared with only 160,000 today. “Detroit is still waiting for Hillary Clinton’s apology. I expect Detroit will get that apology right around the same time Hillary Clinton turns over the 33,000 emails she deleted.” While Donald Trump’s longstanding position about renegotiating all US trade deals so that American workers and the American economy come first does not reflect conservative and Republican policy on free trade, there has been little protest from these groups about his plan to renegotiate trade deals -- perhaps because most Republican voters support Trump's position. But, the tax proposals he outlined Monday echo the Republican Party's and House Speaker Paul Ryan's tax agenda. Trump pledged to eliminate the estate tax and add a new tax deduction for childcare, a project he credited his daughter Ivanka for championing -- spokesman Larry Kudlow later said that the details of the deduction are still being worked out but that there will be an income cap on it. Trump also said he will adopt the House Republican rates of zero, 12, 25, and 33 percent. Trump called his plan a shot in the arm for American business as he heavily criticized Hillary Clinton for promoting policies that have sent and kept jobs overseas. His tax plan will also allow business to write off investments immediately instead of waiting until the end of the year, will cut regulations “massively” and will lower the business tax rate to 15%. His tax plan, Trump said, will allow "new dollars and wealth to come pouring into our country -- and into cities like Detroit.” He added : "No one will gain more from these proposals than low-and-middle income Americans.” ~~~~~~ In this critically important speech -- meant to flesh out his economic policies and also to regain his position in campaign polls -- Trump returned to his ‘America First’ theme, repeating it often and taking on the mantle of defender of renewed American economic growth and prosperity, while calling Hillary Clinton the advocate of globalist policies that he says favor other countries, leaving American workers jobless as American industry crumbles. Trump promised : “We will put new American metal into the spine of this nation....It will be American hands that rebuild this country, and it will be American energy - mined from American sources - that powers this country....Our country will reach amazing new heights.” ~~~~~~Dear readers, interestingly, although Trump was interrupted more than ten times by protesters, who, at regular intervals, tried to tempt him to depart from his prepared speech and lash out at them as he often has in the past, thus creating more unwanted campaign distractions, Trump stayed calm. He smiled and said, “Thank you, thank you,” as his audience silenced the protesters with boo's. “It's all very well planned out,” he said of the interruptions that occurred every few minutes. AND, Trump stuck largely to his script -- sending out to America a traditional Republican economic message of tax reduction and regulation cutbacks, with Trump specialties added, as he promised to tear down and renegotiate trade deals, while attacking globalism and its proponent Hillary and her campaign. Without alienating his primary season base, Trump delivered a reassuring message to the GOP on Monday -- his business-based rhetoric, the Republican substance of his speech, and perhaps most important, his calm demeanor, even when heckled by protesters eager to send him off the rails. Michigan is a potential swing state in the general election because of Trump’s appeal with blue-collar white workers. The polls had shown Trump ahead of Hillary in Michigan, but in the last two unsettling weeks, Clinton, has moved ahead in Michigan, attacking Trump's "unfitness" to be President and touting President Obama’s decision to bail out the auto industry in 2009. But, Michigan's heart is in Trump's corner. Michigan voters know that Bill Clinton's NAFTA destroyed their economy, that it was Democrat not GOP policies that brought down the American automobile industry. Other Democrat-created 'Rust Belt' states -- Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, New Hampshire, Illinois -- understand this, too. And, as Trump pounded home in the Energy portion of his economic speech, voters in coal states like West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Arkansas, as well as voters in oil states like Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, North and South Dakota, know that Donald Trump is not going to tax and regulate their industrial bases to the point of destruction. Trump will free them to rebuild their industries and nourish the rest of America with the resources it needs to "Make America Great Again." Donald Trump took a page out of the Reagan economic policy play book on Monday. If the GOP is smart enough to understand this and support Trump, and if Trump stays on message, there is no way that Hillary Clinton and her tax-and-spend Democrat agenda that has crippled American industry and jobs -- Trump called it "Yesterday's Agenda" -- can win in November. No Way.

Trump's Nuclear Policy Recognizes that Nonproliferation Is a Concept from a Past Era

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told The Cats Roundtable Sunday that Donald Trump has a real chance to bounce back from his latest polling deficits. Gingrich noted that Trump had been ahead of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton "in every poll, so the chance for him to bounce back again I think is very real." In the TV interview, Gingrich said the last two weeks have been "tough" on the GOP nominee, but he called the post-convention political climate "a period of turmoil" : "A lot of Republicans get very scared," Gingrich said, adding that "The elite media is 95 percent against Trump and doing everything they can to fan the flames of a panic, but the fact is, that I think that this race is a long, long ways from over." Gingrich has been critical of Trump over his attacks attacking the father of a fallen Moslem American soldier and his initial reluctance to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senator John McCain and Senator Kelly Ayotte for re-election -- Trump has since endorsed all three GOP candidates; but, he says he has the right to defend himself against the attacks of the fallen soldier's father. Gingrich said the fight ahead needs to be focused on Clinton : "Hillary has enormous liabilities … It is a period of turmoil....And the truth is that Hillary Clinton is probably the most dishonest person ever to run for President — and certainly the most corrupt ever to be nominated for President." ~~~~~~ Gingrich joined Trump in several other positions that have divided Republicans and caused boisterous attacks on Trump from the mainstream media, the Clinton campaign and even President Obama. Gingrich told Newsmax last weekend that he would "tear up the Iran nuclear deal on day one of a Trump presidency." Most Americans agree with this Trump position. Gingrich, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, also recently expressed his determination to interrogate Moslems in the US about their beliefs and support of sharia law. While this may sound like anti-First-Amendment religious-based testing of immigrants -- as it is often described by the media and Democrats -- it is in fact not that at all. The cry from the Progressive camp that "this is not who we are" is their way of improperly using the First Amendment to further their agenda of importing at least another half million Syrian and other Middle Eastern refugees into the US without proper vetting -- something that is now impossible because of the Syrian civil war and turmoil in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Sudan and Somalia, where many of the "refugees" come from. If America can learn anything from Europe, it is that unvetted refugees are often not escaping personal political or religious persecution at home but seeking better economic conditions in their destination countries. The US can also learn from Europe that with unvetted "refugees" come a number of unmarried young men who are already radicalized and intent on carrying out jihad in Europe. The US Constitution and the First Amendment's guarantee of religious freedom have nothing to do with vetting immigrants, a procedure that has gone on for at least 140 years as waves of immigrants were "vetted" for their political and religious positions, as well as for their English language and job skills before being admitted. ~~~~~~ But, in the last two weeks, the biggest outcry has come from Democrats and establishment Republicans who are "nervous" about Donald Trump's rhetoric concerning nuclear weapons. ~~~~~~ THE ANTI-TRUMP NUCLEAR ARGUMENT. They describe Trump’s rhetoric about using nuclear weapons and potentially allowing them to be obtained by US allies as dangerous and disqualifying for the presidency. During a press conference at the Pentagon last week, President Obama said this : “Just listen to what Mr. Trump has to say and make your own judgment with respect to how confident you feel about his ability to manage things like our nuclear triad,” the three-pronged set of air, land and sea defenses that have been the backbone of nuclear weapons policy for a generation. Earlier last week, Obama called Trump “unfit” to serve as commander-in-chief, and his comments have been supported by some Republicans. Former Senator Gordon Humphrey described Trump as a 'sociopath' in an email to NBC News, calling him 'pathologically insecure' : "To imagine Trump in charge of our armed forces at a moment of crisis is frightening.” Hillary Clinton and her supporters say that Trump’s inexperience makes him too dangerous a liability for the White House. ~~~~~~ THE PRO-TRUMP NUCLEAR ARGUMENT. Trump surrogates and supporters say the characterizations made by Clinton and Trump opponents are unfair. Roger Stone, longtime Trump ally and advisor to President Reagan, said the new accusations are "echoes of longtime Democratic efforts to portray Republican candidates as prone to using nuclear weapons....We have always used nuclear weapons as a deterrent, Trump is in that exact same tradition. What are they trying to say? That he's trigger happy, he's mentally unstable and he would push the button? Nonsense.” Stone also blasted Hillary Clinton's hawkish views on national defense, citing her record of support for the Iraq War to turn the accusations back around : “He's the peace candidate -- she's more likely to use the arsenal than he is. She supported war when he's been opposed to war. He has a lovely family that he has no interest in destroying in a nuclear holocaust. It's an absurd notion.” TheHill noted that Trump’s position on nuclear weapons was fed by remarks of MSNBC “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough, a former Republican member of Congress, who said the GOP nominee had repeatedly asked a foreign policy briefer why the US could not use its vast nuclear arsenal. The Trump campaign has denied the report and Trump confidantes characterized Scarborough's accusation as a political smear. Roger Stone said : “Unless he can produce the name of said advisor, I'm calling bullshit on this.” ~~~~~~ WHAT NUCLEAR EXPERTS SAY. “This is the most dangerous thing that he has said, among many dangerous and stupid things,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, 26-year State Department veteran who worked on nonproliferation issues under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Fitzpatrick, executive director of the US office of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, who has been publicly critical of Trump, added : “This could really trigger nuclear wars that could end mankind. Is that what he wants? Talking about nuclear weapons the way he talked about it is not rational.” Kingston Reif, director for disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association, who told TheHill he is not politically involved this election cycle but gave this opinion : “If the United States were to reduce our defense commitment to Japan or South Korea and give either one of those countries, basically, a green light to pursue nuclear weapons, in my view it would vastly undermine the security situation in the region, increase the threat posed by nuclear weapons and, ultimately, to the United States.” Reif said if Japan were free to acquire nuclear weapons, South Korea might not be far behind. And then both China and North Korea might be propelled to increase their nuclear arsenals : “Every President since Eisenhower has pursued a policy of trying to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, and that’s Republican and Democrat. It’s a very well established article of faith among both parties that the US should try to prevent additional countries from developing nuclear weapons.” Douglas Feith, a Pentagon official under George W. Bush, said Trump's comments will force other countries to question US commitment to their security, potentially propelling them to explore amassing nuclear weapons : “Even though they don’t directly relate to nuclear weapons, they have an effect on nuclear weapons,” said Feith, who does not support Trump’s White House bid, “because if our allies believe that he is unreliable, that he is not a faithful ally, then they won’t rely on our nuclear umbrella and they will possibly come to the conclusion that the only way they can have security is to develop a nuclear arsenal of their own.” James Acton, co-director of the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who is neutral in the presidential race, said : “When it comes to nuclear weapons, [lack of] message discipline is a policy weakness." ~~~~~~ WHAT TRUMP ACTUALLY SAYS. Trump has suggested that Japan, South Korea and possibly Saudi Arabia should obtain nuclear stockpiles. In March, Trump told the New York Times : "If Japan had that nuclear threat, I’m not sure that would be a bad thing for us.” His comments cut against a core concept of US nuclear policy for the last six decades : that fewer countries, not more, should have nuclear weapons. This policy has led the US to promise its nuclear umbrella to countries such as Japan and South Korea in order to discourage them from acquiring weapons of their own. What is often not noted is that Trump also told the NYT that the prospect of greater proliferation inevitable, but the current situation over-extends US resources : “Biggest problem, to me, in the world, is nuclear, and proliferation. At the same time, you know, we’re a country that doesn’t have money.” Trump's nuclear position echoes his over-arching “America first” theme that has received criticism from both the Democrat and GOP establishments. US security foreign commitments have come at the expense of its domestic needs, Trump claims. He also questions global security agreements and organizations. Last month, Trump raised eyebrows by refusing to unconditionally pledge to come to the aide of NATO allies in Europe if they were invaded by Russia. Recently, he clarified his statement that Putin will never invade Ukraine -- adding "not while I'm President." ~~~~~~ Dear readers, Trump has been willing to talk more openly about his foreign policy plans than any other current American politician. He will demand financial participation from NATO allies. He will demand that Japan and South Korea increase their military participation in regional Asian defense preparedness. He has raised the possibility of using nuclear weapons in a future conflict, something other politicians have not done. Not only has he said he might be willing to use nuclear weapons in a conflict in Europe, but he says he might employ them in a fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. While Trump's suggestions are a dramatic change in the concept of how nuclear weapons are used, he has also shone a light on reality. Russia already has nuclear weapons and has threatened to use them in eastern Europe if NATO tries to undo the Russian occupation of eastern Ukraine and Crimea. The Axis of Evil composed of Russia/Iran/North Korea is rushing toward nuclear weapons and ICBM nuclear missile capability for Iran and North Korea. It would be foolish to believe that China does not have nuclear capability. So, what is the viability of the nuclear "nonproliferation" issue today? It exists in the minds and rhetoric of nuclear experts whose income and power depend on assuring the world that all will be well if only we follow their advice. And, it exists in the public pronouncements of establishment politicians who would find it easier to lie than to tell their citizens the truth. The truth is that nonproliferation is a concept of the past mocked by today's rogue states. The last shred of credibility for nuclear nonproliferation ended the day Barack Obama signed the Iran nuclear deal.

Does Former CIA Director Mike Morell's Endorsement of Hillary Mean Anything

Casey Pops is back -- let's hope the system holds. ~~~~~~ On Friday, the Daily Bell Staff published the following quote from the New York Times by Michael Morell, a former CIA director titled "I Ran the CIA. Now I’m Endorsing Hillary Clinton" : "During a 33-year career at the Central Intelligence Agency, I served presidents of both parties -- three Republicans and three Democrats. I was at President George W. Bush’s side when we were attacked on Sept. 11; as deputy director of the agency, I was with President Obama when we killed Osama bin Laden in 2011....On Nov. 8, I will vote for Hillary Clinton." ___New York Times, Michael J. Morell. ~~~~~~ The Daily Bell describes the editorial as "a great example of how in politics the better and more willing liar can gain the most support. Even when the lying is obvious." Morell has endorsed Hillary Clinton, but his reasons for supporting her are "controversial and in some cases outright fabrications." The main reason to vote for Hillary, according to Morell, is because she is far more knowledgeable about national security, which is a key issue for many Hillary supporters. Morell says he's in favor of Hillary because she will “deliver on the most important duty of a president -- keeping our nation safe.” This is the reason Morell is not going to support Donald Trump who “may well pose a threat to our national security.” Morell says Hillary was an early proponent of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, and she was also a “strong proponent” of how to respond to the “Syrian Civil War.” ~~~~~~ The problem with Morell's reasoning is multiple : many experts think Bin Laden probably died in the early 2000s, long before Obama was President and could appoint Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, and there was no civil war conflagration in Syria until the West, specifically President Obama, created one by ignoring the pleas of reformer rebels for support, thus ensuring that ISIS would take over the rebel movement for its own islamic jihadist ends. It is true that unlike Mrs. Clinton, Donald Trump has no governmental experience in national security, leaving us somewhat uncertain about how he would manage US foreign policy as President. But, Trump has expressed skepticism about current US foreign policy and the choice of wars in the recent past, and that should be seen as a positive. The NYT article also criticizes Trump for not being negative enough regarding Russia and Putin. In fact, it is fairly obvious that the West, led by NATO, is provoking Putin to create more military tension in both Syria and, more importantly, in the Ukraine and eastern Europe. Morell ends the NYT article this way : "My training as an intelligence officer taught me to call it as I see it. This is what I did for the CIA. This is what I am doing now. Our nation will be much safer with Hillary Clinton as president." ~~~~~~ Let's consider just what the CIA did for the US in the 33 years that Michael Morell was climbing up the ladder to the directorship. The CIA probably : failed to uncover or alert the US to the first New York City terrorist attack; failed to uncover or alert the US to the 9/11 Trade Center attack; failed to find Osama bin Laden in a timely fashion; failed to convince President George H. W. Bush to take out Saddam Hussein when the US was in Iraq the first time and had the strong coalition needed to do the job; blew the task of stating firmly whether there were or were not WMD in Iraq before President G. W. Bush went back into Iraq; muffed the job of providing solid intelligence about the growth of nuclear weapons R&D in Iran; failed to convince either President Bush or Obama to remove al-Malaki from his leadership role in Iraq in time to save Iraq from becoming a satellite state of shiite Iran; missed the growth of Putin's power in eastern Ukraine and his surprise invasion of eastern Ukraine and takeover of Crimea; failed to successfully advise the State Department about islamic terrorist threats to US diplomatic stations, including Benghazi; and, last but by no means least, the CIA has totally blown the job of knowing where islamic terrorists are hiding in the US and being out in front of their terrorist attack plans. ~~~~~~ Dear readers, you will notice I said the CIA has PROBABLY failed to do these things, because IF the CIA actually did its job and provided all these critical intelligence points, then the conclusion is crystal clear. No President or Secretary of State in the past 33 years has taken the CIA's advice seriously enough or acted on it adequately. AND that includes Hillary Clinton during the critical years 2009-2012. So, Morell and his CIA staff either did not do their primary job of gathering usable intelligence; or, they failed miserably to convince their clients -- Presidents, Secretaries of State and Defense, and Congress -- to make use of the intelligence they offered. Either way, Mike Morell, based on what he "did for the CIA," has little credibility in endorsing Hillary Clinton or anybody to be President, and, with Hillary as President, America has very little chance of being “much safer” than if Donald Trump were President. At least Trump says things that indicate he thinks independently and critically about America's foreign policy issues, and his expressed conclusions make it clear he understands just how abysmal has been the record of the Obama/Hillary team when it comes to foreign policy. So, thank you, Mike Morell, but no thank you. We will call you if we need your advice, but you don't need to sit close to your phone.

Dear Readers, Please Be Patient...My System Is Down

Dear Readers, I am having serious system problems and I think it will be another week before they are resolved. I really apologize for my absence. I will try to post blogs beginning Monday, hoping they will get posted. The times are both troubling and full of things to think about and comment on and I miss being with you each day. Be safe and happy and we will be together again soon. Take good care and think positive thoughts about my computer troubles. Lots of love, Casey Pops