The comic strip Calvin and Hobbs provided us with an excellent summary of talk show hosts. Calvin said “I will spout simplistic opinions for hours on end, ridicule anyone who disagrees with me, and generally foster divisiveness, cynicism and a lower level of public dialog” and concludes with “Imagine getting paid to act like a 6-year-old." An apt description.
The last report on the jobs front showed 335,000 new jobs created with the number of unfilled jobs largely remaining steady. This is certainly a good sign across the board, and it also appears that wages are catching up to inflation. Chairman Powell indicated that there would not likely to be a rate cut which caused the stock market to tank, at least temporarily, but as soon as there is a rate cut, I think we will see an uptick yet again in the market. Let me point out, nonetheless, Republicans continue to complain about the poor economy which makes no sense given the number of people working, wage levels increasing, and profits holding steady.
The Clinton County area Chamber of Commerce reports that we have achieved a 98% return in Canadian visitors. This is reflected most obviously in sales tax revenue generated by Clinton County, and the level of occupancy in hotels and dining establishments. This is all good news. In addition, the Chamber reported that its business survey indicates that most businesses, in fact, 82% believe business will grow or hold steady in 2024.
Republicans in Congress managed to have two significant actions fail within the last several days. The first is, of course, the attempt to impeach the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the second was the defeat of the funding bill for Israel. Republicans decided to put up the funding bill as a stand-alone which was largely defeated by their own conservative ranks. Go figure as to the Republican strategy.
Data recently indicates that Mexico outpaced China as our top source of imports for the first time in 20 years. Some of the shift, of course, is the establishment of manufacturing plants by China in Mexico, the result, nonetheless, remains that the source of the goods is Mexico and not China, even if China eventually ends up with the money.
We all know the outcome of the DC circuit decision on Mr. Trump’s claim of immunity, which was a solid rejection by three judges, 2 Democrats and 1 Republican, all who voted unanimously to reject his claim. The next step in the process is for Mr. Trump to appeal to the Supreme Court, where procedurally the Court does not have to accept the case, it can simply reject what is known as a certiorari Petition, which would then allow the DC circuit decision to stand.
The few Republicans who voted against the Mayorkas impeachment resolution did so on the basis that they did not believe the evidence rose to high crimes and misdemeanors. The other issue that was raised, of course, was do you continue the tit for tat in terms of impeachment activity. At the time of Mr. Trump’s two impeachments, I urged not proceeding, not because I didn’t think he was guilty, but he wouldn’t be convicted, and it would look like just a political stunt which, unfortunately, it was, just as are the purported impeachments of Secretary Mayorkas and President Biden.
The position taken by the Republicans in the recent Border Security negotiations was largely impacted by Mr. Trump not wanting Mr. Biden to get a “win” which evidences just how little Republicans care about the country versus politics.
Many countries are seeing significant population declines including Russia, China, Spain, Italy, Japan, and many others while countries like Nigeria, India, Pakistan, and Australia all have seen growth, and interestingly enough, so has the US by 8 million; it should be noted that the bulk of that population increase in the US comes from minorities. The article also focuses on the working age population in each country, because those are the people who staff our offices, factories, farms, care for the sick and the elderly. If we used a need-based immigration system we would be stealing the working age population from other countries.
The Wall Street Journal declared recently that Representative Stefanik is disqualified from the Vice Presidency for saying recently she would have stopped the electoral college count – a clearly unconstitutional act pandering to a fool.
Mr. Trump announced that if NATO countries didn’t pay their “dues” he would tell Putin to do whatever he wanted in Europe. Now the fool speaks.
Bill Owens is a former member of Congress representing the New York 21st, a partner in Stafford, Owens, Piller, Murnane, Kelleher and Trombley in Plattsburgh, NY and a Strategic Advisor at Dentons to Washington, DC.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.