April 28, 2017: Supply-Side Paradise | Oh, That Wall | Pundit Soap Opera
1. Tax Plan, Apple.
The top news of the week, of course, is that Trump has proposed BIG reductions in corporate and personal taxes. There aren’t a lot of details, but the Conservative Media is predictably drooling over the plan. What about those deficit hawks? Well, they seemed mostly quiet as the bigger mouths advanced 1980s supply-side theory. Cut taxes, the economy grows. The cuts will pay for themselves and maybe the wall between us and Mexico. No, wait, we forget ourselves. Mexicans will pay for that.
But, in addition to the predictable spew, we noticed two emergent themes. First, the Conservative Media are obsessed with what they see as liberal corporations avoiding taxes by keeping funds overseas. (Corporations associated with conservative politics like Wal-Mart, which do the same, don’t bother them so much.) In particular, the Red Twittersphere was all over Apple.
Rush Limbaugh, for one, advanced the idea that a one-time cut in repatriation taxes being offered by Trump would entice Apple to finally pay up. What seemed to annoy Limbaugh was Apple’s image as a “worldwide social justice and social warrior company.”
“Apple who normally you would think would want to pay a 90% tax rate, as good Social Justice Warriors, do not want to pay such a high, exorbitant rate as 35%. So they keep that money overseas where much of it has been earned.
Repatriation is the bringing that money back home and having it circulating in the American economy.”
Theme two was that while liberal whiners were unfairly labeling Trump’s offer as a tax cut for the rich, Democratic politicians were already falling into line.
The Daily Caller noted that Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat from New Jersey, said on MSNBC that he was eager to work with the president.
Of course, the rookie Congressman has already been something of a thorn to his party.
Meanwhile, National Review just couldn’t comprehend how Democrats could logically be against the tax cut:
“Lower corporate-tax rates should draw broad bipartisan support. As a reform, corporate-tax cuts are far more likely to help workers than trade wars or minimum-wage hikes. It is hard to see why — beyond reflexive “resistance” to Trump — anyone would oppose the idea.”
2. North Korea War Watch
For the second time in a month, the Conservative Press all but announced that we are going to war with North Korea. Trump met with Congressional leaders yesterday and warned them about the escalating tensions with Pyongyang. While the Mainstream Media reported that tougher sanctions were likely the next step, The Drudge Report led with a picture of a battle in progress (tank guns firing, explosions, etc..) and labeled it with this headline: "Kim Readies for War/ Senators Told 'Very Grave' Hawaii Threat Now." Other alt-right sites like Infowars were equally bellicose.
3. Cave In at the Wall. So What?
Trump has spent so much time promising to build a wall on our Mexican border -- and getting the Mexicans to pay. So you might have thought he’d be pilloried for signaling a willingness to back off his pledge in order to avoid a government shutdown. Some, admittedly were not happy. But in the Twittersphere, the Red Base seemed more annoyed by what they saw as funding irrationality: namely, that a Federal judge in San Francisco temporarily blocked Trump’s efforts to cut off funding to sanctuary cities.
Typically, Elizabeth @BasedElizabeth with nearly 90k followers wrote:
We won't fund a wall to prevent illegal immigration but we will fund #SanctuaryCities to accommodate illegal immigrants. -Liberals 🤔
— Elizabeth 🌹 (@BasedElizabeth) April 25, 2017
Meanwhile the Fox Halftime Report, a daily email, shrugged at the prospect of a delay in the wall construction:
First, Trump never promised a brick-and-mortar wall across the entire U.S. southern border. A good hype man always leaves plenty of wiggle room in his sales pitch. Second, no one paying attention ever thought that such a wall, or anything like it, would ever be built or that somehow, fantastically, Mexico would be made to pay for it. Third, the wall itself is not the point.
There may be some Trump supporters so credulous as to still believe that the federal government will spend tens of billions of dollars sealing off the U.S.-Mexico Border like East Berlin and West Berlin. And there may even be some so credulous who believe that Mexico will pay for such a structure.
This group would be so small, though, as to be politically irrelevant. Very relevant, however, are the large number, perhaps even a majority, of Americans who favor greater border security. There’s a reason the past two presidents have emphasized that issue.
4. Trump’s Ladies: Happy Birthday FLOTUS & Ivanka’s Fox-Storm
While the Left was busy exploring the hidden meaning in Trump’s lighthearted remarks Monday that U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley could be easily replaced, the Right was occupied with another woman in Trump’s circle: Melania Trump. The FLOTUS turned 47 yesterday and Trump’s fans used the opportunity to gush about the “graceful” and “beautiful” first lady and vent at the injustices she’s experienced in her brief tenure.
Tennessee @Ten_GOP tweeted:
If Melania Trump was a Democrat she would be on the cover of every magazine & hailed by the Media for her grace, style, languages, beauty. pic.twitter.com/LWDeVrjHQD
— Tennessee (@TEN_GOP) April 26, 2017
Philip Schuyler @FiveRights pointed out:
Thank you America for putting a classy First Lady in the White House, Melania Trump -- Not "Bill Clinton the Rapist!" #maga#trump pic.twitter.com/xl2Pm0bVbY
— Immigrants☆4☆Trump (@immigrant4trump) April 26, 2017
Meanwhile, Immigrants4Trump @immigrant4trump got 420 loves for its dig at the Clintons:
Thank you America for putting a classy First Lady in the White House, Melania Trump -- Not "Bill Clinton the Rapist!" #maga#trump pic.twitter.com/xl2Pm0bVbY
— Immigrants☆4☆Trump (@immigrant4trump) April 26, 2017
Then, the first daughter’s femininity also became the center of controversy. This happened after the Fox host Jesse Watters admired how Ivanka spoke into a microphone at a women’s conference in Germany (where she was jeered for complimenting her father).
Watters started off with this:
“It’s funny, the left says they really respect women, and then when given an opportunity to respect a woman like that, they boo and hiss.”
He then continued:
“So I don’t really get what’s going on here, but I really liked how she was speaking into that microphone.”
John Podhoretz @jpodhoretz, the editor of Commentary and a New York Post columnist, did not hide his absolute disgust in a cascade of enraged tweets at Watters, a Bill O’Reilly protege:
Congratulations, Jesse Watters, you're a disgusting pig as well as being a racist moron. https://t.co/lZbydxIV7l
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) April 26, 2017
Podhorertz continued:
Jesse Waters complains the Left doesn't respect Ivanka Trump and then in front of 2.5 million people intimates Ivanka was blowing her mike.
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) April 26, 2017
Later, Watters said he had been “referring to Ivanka's voice and how it resonates like a smooth jazz radio DJ. This was in no way a joke about anything else.” And Podhoretz tweeted in response:
You are so full of shit it's coming out your ears, you disgusting creep. https://t.co/1cnrfc8rDC
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) April 26, 2017
What We’re Watching:
This was an ill-timed happening for Fox News, given its recent sexual harassment troubles with Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly. (CNN reported that Watters said last night that he will go on vacation until Monday, thus missing a good part of the first week that his show, “The Five,” is in primetime.). Adding to the headaches this week was a racial bias lawsuit filed against the news channel.
Fox seemed to get a reprieve when the former Fox News guest and right-wing blogger Debbie Schlussel retracted an allegation of sexual harassment against Sean Hannity. He called her accusation part of “a smear and slander campaign” and argued that the alt-radical “media fascism” is out to “silence every conservative voice in country.” He said:
The radical, alt-left, destroy-Trump media immediately picked up on lies told about me – even though the person with whom they originated recanted. They wanted a cheap headline.
A simple Google search would have ended the witch hunt against me. These lazy, so-called journalists would have discovered this individual has severe credibility issues and has targeted and tried to smear and slander a me for well over a decade.
Like President Trump, I can fight back. But this is about more than either of us. The dishonest media is out to silence every conservative voice in the country. Trump’s election has made them come unhinged, and now they are coming after all of us.
4. As the Conservative Pundit Turns…
There have been so many twists and turns of fate for our leading conservative pundits that they might provide the stuff for a convincing soap opera. Earlier this week, the firebrand Ann Coulter was hailed as an icon for free speech by insisting that she would appear at a speaking engagement in Berkeley in the face of Antifa resistance. But in this installment, Coulter has now canceled her speech after the conservative student organization that had invited her pulled out. It said the event would be too dangerous. Coulter called it a “dark day” for free speech.
As our heroine Ann is abandoned by her loyal following, Alex Jones, last in the news for his custody battle, was back for insulting Greek yogurt. Chobani filed a suit against Jones, claiming it was defamed when he linked the company, which employs refugees, to a case of child sexual assault in Idaho.
Meanwhile, backbiting at Breitbart has gone public in an ugly way. The Daily Caller reports that a former Breitbart reporter blasted his former boss for kissing up to Ivanka.
Finally, our disgraced leader Bill O’Reilly spoke out on his podcast Monday. He addressed the accusation of sexual harassment that got him canned at Fox only obliquely to say:
“I was very surprised how it all turned out. I can’t say a lot because there’s much stuff going on right now. But I can tell you that I’m very confident the truth will come out. And when it does — I don’t know if you’re going to be surprised, but I think you’re going to be shaken, as I am.”
Tune in tomorrow for another episode…