By Raul Hernandez
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Trump Skips Fox’s GOP Debate
The monster that Fox and the GOP created is skipping their GOP debate
No surprise.
They snickered, winked and nudged each other when Trump raised his Obama birther theories and questioned Obama’s faith.
But he was always good for laughs.
They loved “The Donald.” He was witty and delightful and charming. His coarse remarks simply spiced up the conversation. The Donald was telling it like it is. Speaking his mind.
Trump was comic relief on Fox. A big ego, yet harmless. He wagged his tongue and made ignorant, fact-free remarks. But this colorful character gave them a lot of chuckles. Trump was just being Trump.
Along the way, The Donald even became pals with Bill O’Reilly, who often defended him.
They loved “The Donald.” His star power. Fox profits were up. Ratings soared, and CEO Roger Ailes loved it.
Trump’s recent spat with Fox’s Golden Girl Megyn Kelly was being packaged like the Ali-Frazier championship fight. The GOP debate rematch would send ratings through the roof and beyond.
Ailes was salivating.
The billionaire lapdog that Fox groomed, cuddled and loved was finally paying off in record ratings and ad dollars. But then “The Donald” turned against them. He raised his leg and p*ssed on their debate.
Now, the anticipated big ratings have fizzled. Frowns.
But that could change. Trump could show up at the debate after all, his campaign staff suggested today
It’s Trump 24/7 on CNN and MSNBC
Meanwhile, CNN and MSNBC — through “roundtable discussions” — are milking the Trump-Kelly sideshow for every ounce of ratings, often gently mocking Fox and Ailes.
The talking heads are shamelessly dissecting and analyzing Trump’s crass, crude and nasty remarks that come from the cesspool between Trump’s ears as though they are deciphering hieroglyphics, trying to unlock some kind of Egyptian enigma.
They want the rest of the country to understand what Trump real means, often speculating on his ‘brilliant” political moves. A few suggesting that he is a political Napoleon.
It’s not that complicated. Want to know what Trump really means?
Buy a dictionary or better yet buy the National Review and read how some Republican heavyweights describe The Donald: “vulgar,” “charlatan,” “racist” and America’s George Wallace.
Republican Michael Medved wrote in National Review: “Worst of all, Trump’s brawling, blustery, mean-spirited public persona serves to associate conservatives with all the negative stereotypes that liberals have for decades attached to their opponents on the right.”
Some Republicans are sounding the alarm and warning sane Americans that Trump is dangerous and “crazy.” Most of the country knows that.
So why is Trump polling high in the Party of Lincoln.
It’s really not that complicated.
Here are some of the most obvious reasons: Evangelicals are outraged that gays are allowed to marry. Religious zealots are pounding this message home on Sundays: America is on a fast-track to hell and Obama is the anti-Christ.
Also the racists and the fearful see the changing demographics — the browning of America — and are terrified about illegal Immigration. Also Obamacare. Muslim immigration. Black Lives Matter. The P.C. Nazis are on patrol in the Land of the Easily Offended.
Worse, whiny liberals who bitch about everything and often sound like a cat being lifted in the air by its balls. Group hug. :)
And of course, there is a black man in their White House who they don’t see as being user friendly.
America’s snake-oil salesman, well, he is giving this country a political enema at his campaign rallies to cure whatever ails the nation — like it or not.
Applause, cheers, whistles.
Peso Takes a Financial Plunge
The Mexican peso is on a downward slide.
Who cares, right?
All this means for Americans is more bang for the dollar in Cancun, Acapulco and other Mexican resorts. Cheaper cab fares and hotel rooms.
A story in the El Paso Times newspaper last weekend stated: “At some retail outlets in Downtown El Paso and Juárez the peso is also already trading at 19.10 to the dollar, and since the beginning of the year the Mexican currency had declined by 6.1 percent.”
And, “The devaluation is hurting the purchasing power of Mexican citizens who shop in El Paso stores and the stability of businesses with Mexican contracts that are pegged to the dollar.”
The article is accompanied by a photograph presumably of a Mexican woman holding a box of food items and walking by a Banorte Mexican bank that has the peso exchange rates posted on the bank window.
Nice photographic images but not the entire story.
Many Americans believe that trade with Mexico simply entails streams of older or poor Mexicans such as the one depicted in the El Paso Times photo who cross the border, spend a few dollars on mom and pop stores and go back to Mexico.
But the fact is that U.S.-Mexico trade is much more complicated. It involves billions of dollars in trade and many, many jobs.
U.S. and Mexico Trade
Mexico was the United States’s second largest goods export market in 2013, according to the U.S. Treasury Representative.
The federal agency reports that U.S. goods exports to Mexico in 2013 were $226.2 billion, up 4.7% ($10.2 billion) from 2012, and up 132% from 2003. It is up 444% since 1993 (Pre-NAFTA).
U.S. exports to Mexico accounted for 14.3% of overall U.S. exports in 2013.
The top export categories in 2013 were:
- Machinery ($38.5 billion)
- Electrical Machinery ($36.7 billion)
- Mineral Fuel and Oil ($23.0 billion)
- Vehicles ($21.6 billion)
- Plastic ($15.3 billion)
U.S. exports of agricultural products to Mexico totaled $18.1 billion in 2013, the 3rd largest U.S. Ag export market.
Leading categories include:
- Corn ($1.8 billion)
- Soybeans ($1.5 billion)
- Dairy products ($1.4 billion)
- Pork and pork products ($1.2 billion)
- Poultry meat (excluding eggs) ($1.2 billion)
Good Ole Boy Politics in the South
While they wait for The Wall to be constructed, state lawmakers in Alabama and Georgia did something to speed things up and rid the states of its Mexicans, mostly those who entered the country illegally.
The Ole Boys who were elected to run the state enacted laws that cracked down on illegal immigration. That put big smiles on many of their constituents and won elections.
The law apparently worked. It send many Mexicans packing and moving from those states.
The problem is that nobody invited Alabama and Georgia ranchers and farmers into the discussion when they passed laws with severe measures to restrict or discourage undesirable or illegal people.
What happened?
When the Southern Fried Brain Trust at the State Capitols passed these laws, they didn’t figure who would be around to do the backbreaking work and pick up the states’ crops after thousands of Mexicans left the state.
So, the crops rotted in the fields, according to reports in The Guardian and The Atlantic.
I don’t recall any of these economic facts ever entering into the national dialogue about illegal immigration.
Secure U.S.-Mexico Borders
There is no question, the U.S. needs to secure and protect its borders.
Having lived in El Paso a good chunk of my life, I understand this better than most people.
Most of the people who risk their lives and sometimes pay thousands of dollars to cross the border are desperate, poor and just looking for an opportunity to find work to feed their families.
There is no doubt in my mind that if the fence is taken down and the Border Patrol is dismantled, the Third World would be in U.S. by breakfast, and I don’t blame them.
If I lived in some South American or Mexican slum, I would sell my soul to go live in the greatest country in the world.
But a weak peso means fewer jobs in Mexico, and desperate people do what they have to do to feed their families, including going to where they can find work.
The Mexican poor are always the ones to take the brunt of a sluggish economy in Mexico.
They have struggled and suffered as a result of drug cartel violence and corruption in Mexican cities and at the state level, including law enforcement.
Cartel violence resulted in many businesses being closed along the border and tourism being shut down. That is the price that is paid by the poor to supply the U.S. of A, the world’s largest drug consumer, with narcotics.
Canada’s Guest Worker Program
What the U.S. needs is a Guest Worker Program, similar to the one that Canada and Mexico signed.
Washington Post did an excellent report on the program.
This would be a program that would offer jobs to Mexicans, protect them from unscrupulous employers who exploit and cheat them out of their wages. They would be able to earn a decent wage.
Also a program where they would be able to save money with contributions from their employers and later, earn a monthly retirement stipend.
Most simply want to do work nobody else will do and go back to Mexico to be with their families.
But it is easier for the political morons in Congress to beat their chests and spew BS about who can be tougher on Mexico and illegal immigrants than fix the problems.
That gets them reelected.