RICK MORAN:

Democrats are sounding the alarm that swing voters know and dislike socialism, warning it could cost them the House and the presidency. The poll is making the rounds of some of the most influential Democrats in America…

…1,003 likely general-election voters who are white and have two years or less of college education…

…These are the “white, non-college voters” who embraced Donald Trump in 2016 but are needed by Democrats in swing House districts…

• • Ocasio-Cortez was recognized by 74% of voters in the poll; 22% had a favorable view.
  • Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota — another member of The Squad — was recognized by 53% of the voters; 9% (not a typo) had a favorable view.
  • Socialism was viewed favorably by 18% of the voters and unfavorably by 69%.
  • Capitalism was 56% favorable; 32% unfavorable.
  • “Socialism is toxic to these voters,” said the top Democrat.

I think these poll results explain the President’s latest tweet attack against the 4 young congresswomen.

 

Sundance:

“…Ultimately an openly hostile and aggressive position by China is exactly what President Trump would prefer.  Pretense is a painstakingly annoying negotiation strategy and President Trump is predisposed to be a notoriously ‘get-to-the-nub-of-it’ type of negotiator.  Down South the term would be: ‘he doesn’t suffer fools’.

The current status-quo, where international investment is paused to wait and see what happens (while corporations make alternate plans), is buckets more favorable to President Trump than Chairman Xi.  Essentially, the current stalemate has nimble companies departing China, the Belt-and-Road initiatives shrinking and Beijing is burning through cash to subsidize their current manufacturing base. [The currency devaluation is ongoing]

Existing tariffs remain a financial drain on China, not U.S. consumers. In actuality U.S. inflation continues to decline. Meanwhile President Trump is hitting Xi with public questions about Beijing purchasing U.S. agricultural products; a previous promise.

In actuality President Trump knows the purchase promises were the typical false-promises of Beijing; but, well, the lies have a value in calling out Panda’s duplicity.

The potential tariffs (25 percent on $300+ billion in goods) sit on the table as a weapon President Trump would love to start using.  However, in the dance with the dragon Lighthizer and Ross have to wait to allow the panda mask to fully drop.  Currently Chairman Xi Jinping is trying to keep the financial/investment class from noticing the panda mask is slipping.  However, that ruse can’t last too much longer.  Thus the dance continues.

At the 30,000/ft level China appears to have accepted that President Trump isn’t going to concede an inch. Therefore their position in the trade stand-off is timed to exhaust around the 2020 presidential election.  Despite what the U.S. media are claiming, Beijing is making very visible moves to withstand more than a year of status quo strain…”

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SCENES FROM A STARBUCKS

JOHN HINDERAKER:

Starbucks is one of America’s growing cadre of “woke” companies. Now that one need not be a customer to hang out in a Starbucks store, the inevitable consequences are beginning to appear. These observations were penned by a friend of mine:

When I quit smoking, coffee replaced cigarettes and I’ve been frequenting a Starbucks in downtown Minneapolis twice a day since November, 2017. One day in March 2018, I couldn’t. The branch, like every other one nationwide, had closed so staff could be trained in some sort of ‘social justice’ thing after some guys were kicked out of a Starbucks in Philadelphia for not buying anything. Starbucks’ response was to make their branches ‘safe spaces’ for anyone, whether they had bought anything or not.

At that point, Starbucks stopped being a chain of coffee shops and turned into a network of public urinals and flop houses with a coffee bar attached.

You might not have seen this in some of the suburban branches. But the branch I go to downtown quickly filled up with non-paying ‘customers’ who would get their complimentary water – in a planet-suffocating plastic cup with plastic straw, no less – and make themselves at home. Often, around half the seating in this branch was taken up by people with these complimentary drinks, charging their phones, with their baggage spread out around them.

Many of these people were perfectly pleasant. But many of them were not. I saw arguments. I saw fights. I saw paying customers pestered for money. I saw people helping themselves to food without paying. I saw people breaking out a speaker and blaring their music out, whether anyone else wanted to hear it or not. I saw groups of people disappearing into the bathroom together. I saw another guy’s butt.

I’ve done a few ‘nametag and hairnet’ jobs in my time, so I felt sorry for the staff, who have never been anything less than thoroughly professional and courteous. Here they were, without the wages or training to do so, having to act as counselors to people with drug and mental health issues, all so some millionaire CEO somewhere could feel #woke. They thought they were going to be working at a trendy coffee shop, they ended up in the Double Deuce from the movie Road House instead.

This winter, the situation got so bad that the management had to act. Half of the branch’s seats – the comfortable ones by the window – were removed. A security camera was installed, with the goings on at the back of the store by the bathroom being broadcast on a big screen. A private security guard was brought in to expel the more brazen offenders. ‘All Are Welcome’ ceases to apply when people actually take you up on it.

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