Category Archives: Politically Incorrect

By Justin Sink Bloomberg News (TNS)

WASHINGTON Leaked transcripts of phone conversations between Donald Trump and two world leaders show the U.S. president relentlessly focused on his political image and underscore some of the difficulty he has had navigating foreign affairs.

The conversations between Trump and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto during Trumps first week in office offer a window into the presidents occasionally fraught relationships with other world leaders and his approach to negotiating toward his goals.

While some details had been previously reported, full transcripts of the calls, produced by White House staff, were published Thursday by The Washington Post. The Post didnt reveal how it obtained the transcripts.

Revelations include Trump describing his proposed border wall to Mexicos president as the least important thing we are talking about, but politically this might be the most important. He implores Pena Nieto to stop saying publicly that Mexico wont pay for its construction, arguing they could work out a deal so that the cost would come out in the wash.

In his call with Turnbull, the president vents about the Australian prime ministers insistence that Trump honor a deal struck by former President Barack Obamas administration to allow 1,250 refugees housed by Australia into the U.S.

This is going to kill me, Trump told Turnbull, calling the deal stupid and saying it will make me look terrible. The president goes on to describe the phone call which capped a marathon day in which he also spoke to the leaders of Russia, Germany, Japan, and France as his worst call of the bunch.

I have had it, Trump tells Turnbull. I have been making these calls all day and this is the most unpleasant call all day. (Russian President Vladimir) Putin was a pleasant call. This is ridiculous.

The White House declined to comment when asked about the transcripts. But the release of the documents, compiled by White House staff and circulated within national security departments and agencies, demonstrates that the administration is still struggling to tamp down on leaks that appear intended to damage his presidency. Administration officials have previously expressed frustration with the revelations, saying they impair the ability of the president to candidly speak with world leaders.

The conversations are peppered with the presidents signature braggadocio and flair for the politically incorrect.

He tells the Mexican president that he won New Hampshire because New Hampshire is a drug-infested den. Democrat Hillary Clinton won New Hampshires electoral votes in the general election, though Trump did win the Republican primary there. The comment has drawn criticism from Democratic lawmakers in the state, with Senator Maggie Hassan calling the characterization disgusting and Senator Jeanne Shaheen saying Trump owed New Hampshire an apology.

Trump also claims to have earned the votes of a large percentage of Hispanic voters, brags about the size of his campaign crowds and offers to help big league with Mexicos pretty tough hombres responsible for the drug trade.

The transcripts show Pena Nieto and Turnbull struggling to reconcile Trumps words with the norms of international diplomacy, the actual terms of trade and migration deals, and his publicly professed positions.

When Pena Nieto says that he will continue to be firm in saying Mexico could not pay for the wall, Trump implores him to not say so to the media.

The press is going to go with that and I cannot live with that, Trump said. You cannot say that to the press because I cannot negotiate under those circumstances.

Pena Nietos office subsequently said in a statement that the two leaders agreed to stop publicly talking about who would pay for the wall. But Trump said just before meeting with the Mexican president at the G-20 summit last month in Germany that Mexico absolutely should pay for the barrier, though he didnt raise the issue with Pena Nieto.

The conversations foreshadow some of the broader foreign policy headaches that have plagued the presidents first six months in office.

Trump got a frosty reception at a pair of world summits in Europe, with traditional U.S. allies expressing frustration with his willingness to go back on deals negotiated by the Obama administration. Trumps decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord left the U.S. isolated during that discussion at last months G-20 summit in Germany.

The U.S. presidents focus on catchphrases and threats has also proven a sticking point among traditional allies. Germanys Angela Merkel has signaled frustration with Trumps insistence that her country, whose trade relations with the U.S. are governed by a broader European deal, is exploiting U.S.-German trade. The presidents insistent suggestions that NATO allies owe back payments to the alliance because of a mutual agreement for each country to reach a certain defense spending goal has also earned eye-rolls within Europe.

Trumps gruff and occasionally confrontational manner has also ruffled feathers and led to memorable diplomatic moments, from shoving his way to the front of a G-20 family photo to awkward handshakes with other leaders.

And while Trump frequently said on the campaign trail that he would use his business acumen to pressure China into curbing North Koreas nuclear and ballistic missile ambitions, provocations have continued. Earlier this week, Trump tweeted he was very disappointed with China over the issue.

Read more here:
Trump transcripts with world leaders released - Asheboro Courier Tribune

What a fantastic servant of the UK. One of the last great impregnable bastions of political incorrectness. They dont make them like that anymore.

So said Britains top diplomat, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, better known as just Boris, in a tweet about Prince Philip, a man who might have done more to damage Britains international standing by crassly insulting people than even he has.

It rather speaks to the character of our Foreign Secretary that the first thing he chose to celebrate about the Queens consort upon his retirement from Royal duties was his penchant for putting his foot firmly in his mouth.

When Boris talks of a bastion of political incorrectness hes actually indulging in a pernicious form of political correctness himself, just one that is common to the political right rather than the left. Perhaps its time for us to stop bowing to it.

Ill get the ball rolling: Bastion of political incorrectness translates in plain spoken English as rude and racist.

With that tweet BoZo has shown himself to be nothing more than a slimy and cynical opportunist blowing a dog whistle that will be heard by a corps of lumpen racist trolls he thinks might be stupid enough to back a bid by him to become leader of the Conservative Party. He is an unrepentant, unprincipled, mean minded little piece of pond life. Is that politically incorrect enough for you on the right?

Of course, I realise Im not being entirely fair to pond life with that comparison. Pond life serves a useful purpose.

I feel a teensy bit guilty about stooping to BoZos level by insulting him so. But I havent quite met him at the bottom because there is one crucial distinction in what Im doing and his hero Prince Philip has done in the past. Im taking a potshot at their actions, rather than striking out at someones race, or their nationality, or their gender.

Heres what people like Boris, who regularly decry what they claim to be left wing political correctness, wilfully ignore: There is nothing PC or otherwise about simply being respectful to people who are different to yourself. There nothing PC about avoiding petty stereotyping.

You do rather wonder why a minority of people find that so hard when most Britons manage just fine. My nine-year-old doesn't find it at all hard. BoZo and Phil, by contrast, are grown men, who should know better.

I wonder what BoZos parents would think were they to see him cheering Prince Phil on in the corner of a pub while the latter rants about Hungarians, or New Guineans (he has witlessly taken shots at both) and not being able to be horrible to them in polite society while other patrons try to avoid them.

Boris Johnson tackles child in rugby game in 2015

Did I say pub? Perhaps I should have quoted, I dont know, Annabels, where people like them go for the privilege of paying fifty quid, or whatever they charge, for a beer if thats what it takes to keep the oiks from multicultural London outside.

At this point someone will pipe up that Phil is a product of his age and of the age in which he was brought up, when enlightened attitudes were less common than they are now.

I dont buy that. Ive met lots of older people who wouldnt dream of throwing around racist insults. Remember, too, that the Prince has spent his life globetrotting. He doesnt have the excuse of a sheltered upbringing. He should long ago have learned how to behave when meeting people from other cultures.

Perhaps that fact that he never has is a consequence of the cringing, servile deference with which he has been treated by everyone he encounters, including the execrable BoZo. That can go to peoples heads. Celebrities, who frequently get the same, sometimes behave with similar crassness.

Except that when they do, people are quick to criticise and ridicule them. Prince Phil gets a pass from the politically correct right for being politically incorrect.

Such hypocrisy stinks. So does BoZo.

Read the rest here:
Boris Johnson's tribute to Prince Philip proves that he is the most unsuitable person in the country to be Foreign ... - The Independent

Video-sharing website YouTube seems to be systematically purging conservatives and others who challenge politically correct orthodoxy from its platform.

Free speech activists across the internet were shocked on Tuesday after YouTube appeared to suspend the account of noted psychology professor Jordan B. Peterson. I cannot post new YouTube videos, including last weeks Biblical lecture. No access. At least for now the videos are still up, Peterson tweeted on Tuesday morning.

A backlash quickly ensued, and before the end of the day, and indeed shortly after The Daily Caller published a story on the shock suspension, Petersons account was reinstated. But Peterson is not the first to fall victim to YouTubes efforts to censor politically incorrect free speech, nor will he be the last.

The Google subsidiary announced in a blog post published Tuesday that it is taking new steps to combat what it referred to as terrorism content and hate speech steps critics assert are little more than efforts to censor conservative thought.

Greatly reinforcing this perception is YouTube's own admission that it is partnering with far-left organizations to decide what exactly constitutes hateful or "terrorist" content. "Over the past weeks, we have begun working with more than 15 additional expert [non-governmental organizations] and institutions through our Trusted Flagger program, including the Anti-Defamation League, the No Hate Speech Movement, and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue," YouTube said in the blog post.

"This is terrifying in an Orwellian way," said Dan Gainor, vice president of business and culture at the Media Research Center. "Organizations that don't support free speech, like the ADL, are being used to monitor it. The ADL has clearly lost its way and become just another left-wing pressure group in recent years," Gainor told LifeZette.

Indeed only two weeks ago the ADL found itself embroiled in minor controversy after wrongly listing a number of relatively mainstream right-wing activists and politicians as racist hate figures, including Rebel Media's Gavin McInnes (who is married to an Asian woman), former Virginia gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart, and Milo Yianoppolous, who is a half-Jewish homosexual.

YouTube's reliance on partisan organizations to police "hateful" content is troubling enough, but "YouTube's insistence on telling us how to live our lives and what words we can use is even more distressing," said Gainor.

"The plan to have a 'playlist of curated YouTube videos that directly confront and debunk violent extremist messages' sounds positively like 1984. YouTube apparently doesn't believe its customers are smart enough to know what they want to see," Gainor continued. "Unfortunately, billions of people have turned over their free speech rights to companies that increasingly don't believe in free speech."

In addition to promising to promote progressive propaganda videos, the video-sharing website also admitted that it is effectively implementing new ways to censor politically incorrect content that doesn't actually violate its hate speech policies. "We'll soon be applying tougher treatment to videos that aren't illegal but have been flagged by users as potential violations of our policies on hate speech and violent extremism," YouTube wrote.

"If we find that these videos don't violate our policies but contain controversial religious or supremacist content, they will be placed in a limited state. The videos will remain on YouTube behind an interstitial, won't be recommended, won't be monetized, and won't have key features including comments, suggested videos, and likes," they wrote.

"We'll begin to roll this new treatment out to videos on desktop versions of YouTube in the coming weeks, and will bring it to mobile experiences soon thereafter. These new approaches entail significant new internal tools and processes, and will take time to fully implement."

But YouTube has already begun to implement some of these new approaches and has been doing so for some time. Numerous right-wing accounts on YouTube have been demonetized over the past year, including those of leading right-wing millennials such asJames Allsup, an independent journalist and former director of Students for Trump, Infowars' Paul Joseph Watson, and former Rebel Media reporter-turned-activist Lauren Southern.

Nor is YouTube the first online platform to banish right-wing voices. Last week, Patreon deleted Southern's account solely because she reported on the efforts of "Defend Europe" activists to turn back boats owned by radical left-wing NGOs thatEuropean authorities claim have been operating as taxi services for migrants. Last Thursday, fundraising website GoFundMe removed Allsup's account without reason.

"What we have seen in the last decade, across western media, politics and business and through our education sector is a chilling rise in censorship and curtailment of free speech," said Ben Harris-Quinney, chairman of The Bow Group, the oldest conservative think tank in the United Kingdom and an expert on progressive attempts to stifle free expression.

"Online outlets like YouTube became insurgent largely because of this, but as they join the liberal establishment many are culling off the free speech element that was crucial to their success," Harris-Quinney told LifeZette.

"As Bill Clinton said of the last election 'We thought we had changed their minds, but we'd just silenced their voices,'" Harris-Qunney continued. "Brexit in the U.K. and Trump's election in the U.S. prove that establishment media in no way represents the reality of public sentiment, and all censorship does is leave large sectors of society ignorant to reality."

Ultimately, however, efforts to censor "offensive" speech could backfire on the internet media companies that embrace them.

"As a private company I believe YouTube should be free to do as it pleases," said Harris-Qunniey. "However, what we have seen in recent years is a stark decline in the reach and profitability of establishment media, and I suspect the more YouTube curtails, the greater their loss will be."

Read more:
YouTube Working with ADL to Shut Down Free Speech - LifeZette

LONDON (Reuters) - Prince Philip, the 96-year-old husband of Britain's Queen Elizabeth, bows out of public life on Wednesday with a final solo appearance at an official event, ending a royal career marked by occasional gaffes that landed him in hot water.

Though known for often off-color comments that seized the headlines, Philip has been by the queen's side throughout her 65 years on the throne and she has described him as "my strength and stay".

He announced his retirement in May this year, after completing more than 22,000 solo appearances, spanning seven decades. At an engagement on the day of the announcement, a guest had told Philip he was sorry to hear he was standing down.

"I can't stand up much," quipped the prince.

Both the queen and Prince Philip have cut their workload in recent years, passing on many responsibilities to son and heir Prince Charles, and grandsons, Princes William and Harry.

Philip spent two days in hospital in June for treatment for an infection. The queen, the world's longest-reigning living monarch who celebrated her 91st birthday in April, will continue to carry out a full program of official engagements.

Philip married Elizabeth at Westminster Abbey in 1947, and the couple are due to celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary in November.

Outspoken, irascible and intensely private, Philip, a Greek-born former naval officer, developed a reputation for occasional brusque and sometimes politically incorrect comments at ceremonial events he attended.

A stray remark about "slitty eyes" during a visit to China in the 1980s became symbolic of his gruff and often unguarded manner.

During a visit to Oban in Scotland in 1995 he asked a driving instructor: "How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the (driving) test ?"

Well into his 90s, he made headlines when he exasperatedly swore at a photographer at a 2015 event.

Nonetheless, the queen has described him as a crucial figure during her long reign.

"He has, quite simply, been my strength and stay all these years," Elizabeth said in a rare personal tribute to Philip made in a speech marking their 50th wedding anniversary in 1997.

For his final solo appearance on Wednesday, Philip, also known as the Duke of Edinburgh, will attend a parade of Royal Marines at Buckingham Palace and meet servicemen who have taken part in a 1,664 mile race to raise money for the Royal Marine's Charity.

Buckingham Palace has said that Philip may choose to accompany Elizabeth at certain events in the future.

Reporting by Alistair Smout and Emma Rumney; Editing by Kate Holton and Maayan Lubell/Richard Balmforth

Excerpt from:
Britain's outspoken Prince Philip bows out of public life - Reuters

A friend of mine who attended the Conservative Political Action Conference earlier this year I skipped it reported to me that the young Republican men were wearing their ties down past their [crotches].

I cleaned up the quote a bit for the benefit of a family newspaper. Though Im not sure why I should bother when a White House communications director has helped so many staid institutions expand their horizons.

As my National Review colleague Kyle Smith noted, the New York Times has a long history of insisting that vulgarities do not meet the definition of news fit to print. For instance, it is the Times standard practice to render a colloquialism for speaking gross untruths that combines the male of the bovine species with the fully processed product of what it consumes as a barnyard epithet.

But in the wake of recently hired and recently fired White House communications director Anthony Scaramuccis profanity-laced, on-the-record tirade with a New Yorker reporter, the Gray Lady went blue. It printed, sans bowdlerization, words and phrases that surely would have been just as relevant to its coverage of President Lyndon Johnson, to say nothing of Bill Clinton.

My point here is not to criticize the Times double standards. (There will be plenty of opportunities down the road for that.) Its to note that politics or, more accurately, power has a funny way of changing standards.

Which brings me back to those ties. Ive been around young conservatives since I was one myself, and its always interesting to see how fashion changes. When the first President Bush was in office, blue blazers were a kind of unofficial uniform for young men eager to mimic what then-Bush aide Torie Clarke called the C-SPAN and galoshes crowd surrounding the president.

When the second Bush was in office, the cowboy boot retailers near Young Americas Foundation chapters must have seen a huge increase in sales.

And now, because the president of the United States wears abnormally long power ties (presumably to hide his girth), one sees more and more twentysomething men sporting the new cravat codpiece.

This is not a phenomenon unique to conservatives. While its an urban legend that JFKs alleged refusal to wear a fedora to his inaugural killed the hat industry, countless young liberals with political ambitions tried to replicate the way Kennedy talked. When Franklin D. Roosevelt was a kid, he ostentatiously mimicked his distant cousin, Teddy, wearing those pince-nez glasses and shouting bully!

So about those barnyard epithets. Its hard to miss how so many rank-and-file Republicans relish the presidents crude taunts and insults. Nor is it easy to overlook the fact that the president seemed perfectly comfortable with Scaramucci speaking like a Sopranos character (claims by the White House press secretary in the wake of Scaramuccis firing notwithstanding).

Not long ago, it fell to conservatives such as Bill Bennett, Ralph Reed, Tony Perkins, and Mike Huckabee to denounce vulgarity wherever they saw it. And while these men dont publicly condone Trumps language, they essentially roll their eyes at anyone who makes much of a fuss. And among the rank and file on Twitter, Facebook, etc., theres fierce competition to be as vulgar as possible, or to be as vigorous as possible in defending presidential vulgarity.

Of course, the president is not only changing standards hes the product of them. Over the last decade or so, a whole cottage industry of young anti-left sensationalists has embraced the romantic slogan pater la bourgeoisie! Their crudeness isnt a bug, its a feature.

The rising vulgar tide is typically justified either by the need to seem authentic or as genuflection to the sacred right to fight political correctness. Never mind that not everything that is politically incorrect is therefore correct. (William F. Buckley was not PC, but he had the best manners of anyone I ever met.)

And the competition to seem verbally authentic has spilled over the ideological retaining wall. The Democratic National Committee sells a T-shirt that reads Democrats Give a S*** About People. Several leading Democrats have started dropping F-bombs and other phrases, seemingly as a way to prove their populist street cred.

I guess well know this race to the bottom is over when socialist hero Bernie Sanders starts wearing his ties past his fly.

Jonah Goldberg is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior editor of National Review. You can write to him by e-mail at [emailprotected], or via Twitter @JonahNRO. 2017 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

See original here:
Anthony Scaramucci's expletive-riddled outburst may accelerate a cultural acceptance of profanity. - National Review

A big screen in Cardiffs main shopping street was reportedly hacked with images of swastikas and messages about Shariah appearing.

The giant billboard in Queen Street was allegedly hacked on Tuesday night by a group who claimed on social media that they had a little fun.

A poster on the thread Politically Incorrect, on internet site 4chan, wrote on Twitter: Some Anons from /pol/ were able to hack into a billboard in Cardiff, Wales.

As you can see, they had a little fun.

Images of a swastika and a message that read Warning. This is a Shariah controlled zone. No alcohol. No gambling. No porn were projected onto the board above the Superdrug store in the busy street in the heart of the capital just as thousands of children are off school during the summer holidays.

There were also images of memes and a poster which read Big Brother is watching you, according to the social media account.

A South Wales Police spokesman said they were investigating the incident after receiving a number of calls from concerned bypassers.

In a statement they said: On Tuesday evening South Wales Police received a number of calls relating to concerns regarding messages being displayed on the screens in Queen Street, Cardiff.

We alerted the city council and will investigate any crimes which may have been committed.

The billboard is operated by blowUP media, who have been contacted for comment.

A spokesman Cardiff council said: The council has contacted the company that own and operate the advertising screen. The screen was switched off at midnight on Tuesday night.

Read more:
A hacker gained control of this central Cardiff billboard and posted a swastika and messages mocking Islam - WalesOnline

A friend of mine who attended the Conservative Political Action Conference this year I skipped it reported to me that the Young Republican men were wearing their ties down past their [crotches].

I cleaned up the quote a bit for the benefit of a family newspaper.

Though Im not sure why I should bother when a White House communications director has helped so many staid institutions expand their horizons. As my National Review colleague Kyle Smith noted, the New York Times has a long history of insisting that vulgarities do not meet the definition of news fit to print. For instance, it is the Times standard practice to render a colloquialism for speaking gross untruths that combines the male of the bovine species with the fully processed product of what it consumes as a barnyard epithet.

But in the wake of just-deposed White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramuccis profanity-laced, on-the-record tirade with a New Yorker reporter, the Grey Lady went blue. It printed, sans bowdlerization, words and phrases that surely would have been just as relevant to its coverage of President Lyndon Johnson, to say nothing of Bill Clinton.

My point here is not to criticize the Times double standards (there will be plenty of opportunities down the road for that). Its to note that politics or, more accurately, power, has a funny way of changing standards.

Which brings me back to those ties. Ive been around young conservatives since I was one myself. And its always interesting to see how fashion changes. When the first President Bush was in office, blue blazers were a kind of unofficial uniform for young men eager to mimic what then-Bush aide Tory Clarke called the C-SPAN-and-galoshes crowd surrounding the president.

When the second Bush was in office, the cowboy boot retailers near Young Americas Foundation chapters must have seen a huge increase in sales.

And now, because the president of the United States wears abnormally long power ties presumably to hide his girth one sees more and more twentysomething men sporting the new cravat codpiece.

This is not a phenomenon unique to conservatives. While its an urban legend that JFKs alleged refusal to wear a fedora to his inaugural killed the hat industry, countless young liberals with political ambitions tried to replicate the way Kennedy talked. When Franklin Roosevelt was a kid, he ostentatiously mimicked his distant cousin, Teddy, wearing those pince-nez glasses and shouting bully!

So about those barnyard epithets. Its hard to miss how so many rank-and-file Republicans relish the presidents crude taunts and insults. Nor is it easy to overlook the fact that the president seemed perfectly comfortable with Scaramucci speaking like a Sopranos character.

Not long ago, it fell to conservatives such as Bill Bennett, Ralph Reed, Tony Perkins or Mike Huckabee to denounce vulgarity wherever they saw it. And while these men dont publicly condone Trumps language they essentially roll their eyes at anyone who makes much of a fuss. And among the rank and file on Twitter and Facebook etc., theres fierce competition to be as vulgar as possible or to be as vigorous as possible in defending presidential vulgarity.

Of course, the president is not only changing standards hes the product of them. Over the last decade or so, a whole cottage industry of young anti-left sensationalists has embraced the romantic slogan pater la bourgeoisie! Their crudeness isnt a bug, its a feature.

The rising vulgar tide is typically justified either by the need to seem authentic or as genuflection to the sacred right to fight political correctness. Never mind that not everything that is politically incorrect is therefore correct. (William F. Buckley was not P.C., but he had the best manners of anyone I ever met.)

And the competition to seem verbally authentic has spilled over the ideological retaining wall. The Democratic National Committee sells a T-shirt that reads Democrats Give a S*** About People. Several leading Democrats have started dropping F-bombs and other phrases, seemingly as a way to prove their populist street cred.

I guess well know this race to the bottom is over when socialist hero Sen. Bernie Sanders starts wearing his ties past his fly.

jgoldberg@latimescolumnists.com

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook

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Continued here:
Power changes standards, from language to the length of your tie - Los Angeles Times

By RANDY LUDLOW The Columbus Dispatch Published: July 31, 2017 3:00 AM

YOUNGSTOWN -- If only it was as simple as President Donald Trump makes it sound.

It never has been. The long-suffering Mahoning Valley was a charter member of the "rust belt" long before the phrase became politically incorrect.

All those old, shuttered hulks of the valley's steel-making heyday -- what Trump called "big, once incredible job-producing factories" -- will come roaring back to life, the president told his supporters Tuesday.

Don't sell your homes, Trump told a packed house of 8,000 at a Covelli Centre rally. Don't move in search of employment. Those long-lost jobs, "they're all coming back." It was similar to his promises to coal miners and others from the 2016 campaign.

The specifics of how the fortunes of the Youngstown-Warren area will suddenly and dramatically improve did not accompany Trump's remarks last week.

The Valley, a traditional Democratic stronghold long hungry for good jobs, cast a larger share of its votes for the Republican last fall. It has heard promises from politicians and presidents across generations.

But they have only sporadically translated into bottom-line improvement for residents of the Youngstown-Warren region, which has lost nearly 20 percent of its population since the mills began closing more than three decades ago.

Few, beyond perhaps Trump's most hard-core supporters, expect a return of a lot of high-paying factory jobs. Instead, the area's advocates are concentrating on diversifying the Valley economy beyond blast furnaces and assembly lines.

Youngstown Mayor John McNally, a Democrat, was polite, saying it would be a "challenge" to resurrect all those long-gone jobs in heavy industry.

"It's one of those promises that the previous Democratic campaigns have tried with residents around here. Unless you can deliver on that promise, coming back the next time the response may be different from folks," he said. "I don't think this area as a whole believes those jobs are coming back. I don't know why we keep hearing it."

But Trump supporters say he deserves a chance to deliver on his promises.

"He came back to the area to check on the people. He hasn't forgotten Youngstown," said Marleah Campbell, auxiliary chair of the Trumbull County Republican Party. "He's trying to do what he wants to do, but getting no cooperation. The Republicans need to get behind him."

It's hard to envision a manufacturing revival when the Mahoning Valley is fighting to hang on to what it already has amid an area economy that has bled some of its better jobs just since the start of Trump's presidency.

United Auto Workers Local 1417 trustee Jeff Terrace, a survivor from the stamping-line at one of the pair of General Motors' plants at Lordstown, saw the speech as typical untempered, over-promising Trump.

"I've been a gambler all my life. He's one of those guys who's all-in on every hand regardless of what he holds. We haven't seen any action. It's all talk," said the 57-year-old Terrace.

The lack of demand for small cars led General Motors in March to eliminate the third shift at the plants that build the Chevrolet Cruze. More than 1,000 jobs were lost, including some at area suppliers of seats and bumpers.

The area's unemployment rate stands at 5.9 percent, 20 percent higher than the statewide average. Even after a slight comeback, 700 fewer manufacturing jobs exist now than in January, according to federal figures. The overall jobs picture, however, has improved from 8.2 percent unemployment rate of March due to growth in many lower-paying positions.

Terrace and fellow stamping-line worker Ernie Long, 39, are disappointed that Trump and his administration have not yet abandoned or renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada, as he promised.

Addressing NAFTA might help retrieve the production of the Cruze hatchback model from Mexico might help restore the lost third shift at Lordstown, the men said. Trump told the Youngstown crowd that if he doesn't get a "great deal," he will terminate the pact.

Noting that Trump's overseas-made, Trump-branded products and his moves to hire more foreign workers at a golf property, Long was displeased that Trump has not demonstrated an all-out commitment -- quoting the signs held by his rally supporters -- to "Buy American, Hire American."

"He's supposed to be bringing all these steel jobs back. Where are they?" he asked. "It's all smoke."

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, asked the same question last week at Wheatland Tube in Warren, where he implored Trump to amend an executive order to implement legislation he introduced with Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, to require American-made steel and products in all federally funded infrastructure and public works projects.

Sarah Boyarko, senior vice president of economic development for the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber, stresses diversity and support jobs for emerging industry and trades as the key to Valley job growth.

"We learned from our past experience with the steel industry about having most of our eggs in one basket, and it just doesn't look that way anymore," she said.

A $70 million Obama administration initiative established America Makes in Youngstown to attract investments and provide job training and ongoing development of 3-D printing in metals.

Efforts continue to attract jobs in health care, warehouse distribution and logistics, well-drilling support and high-tech manufacturing, and the area is already attempting to position itself to capture petrochemical and plastic support jobs related to the proposed PTT Global Chemical America $6 billion ethane cracker plant in Belmont County, she said.

The chamber also is attempting to attract more support service jobs for the aluminum industry. The Youngstown-Warren area produces the second-largest amount in the nation.

rludlow@dispatch.com

@RandyLudlow

See the original post here:
Not many in 'Valley' buy Trump's job promises - The-review

USA Todays Jarrett Bell must be Colin Kaepernicks uncle. Why else would he write so much about him, and with total disregard to business? Why would any NFL team sign Kaepernick as a quarterback? He continues to disrespect our great country by kneeling during the national anthem as his form of protest.

The NFL ratings were down last year and owners can ill afford losing more fans while harboring a pariah that can be divisive to a team. I go to movies to be entertained the same as I watch sports. If I do not like an actor, I will avoid his movies. If I do not like a player, I will not watch his team. If the league sanctions him or allows his action, I will avoid it totally. Keep politics in politics and entertainment as entertainment.

Incidentally, if I wear a political shirt to work or if I have a politically incorrect bumper sticker, my place of employment will ask me to remove them. That is their right to safeguard interests, so should the NFL be different? It is his place of employment. He may crusade, just do it off the field and off my television.

I applaud U.S. Rep. Jackie Walorski for her tireless work with her constituents and especially her work to help the senior citizen groups. She most definitely does not ever get the credit she so strongly deserves. Go, Jackie.

I find it interesting that our president is inquiring if he has the power to pardon members of his family and himself. He must know that one must be accused of a crime prior to being pardoned. Do you think hes getting nervous?

Am I to believe there are only six train crossings in South Bend that are not in compliance with federal requirements? And that the six are all in a row in one section of town? Stop the blowing of horns!

I agree wholeheartedly with Jim Reabe of Granger that The Tribune should print all baseball box scores, even if they are a day late. It already prints three teams late box scores, anyway. I always spent 10 or 15 minutes every day checking all the box scores, even though I am strictly a White Sox fan. Todays baseball page takes about two minutes to read anything of importance.

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Letters: Keep politics out of football - South Bend Tribune

Mr. Trump has no patience for consultants and experts, especially the consultants and experts in the Republican Party who were proven wrong about his election. Insecurity is a management tool: keeping people guessing where they stand, wondering what might happen next, strengthens his position.

Mr. Trumps bombast, outsize personality, lack of restraint, flippancy and vulgarity could not be more out of place in Washington. His love of confrontation, his need always to define himself in relation to an enemy, then to brand and mock and belittle and undermine his opponent until nothing but Trump catchphrases remain, is the inverse of how Washingtonians believe politics should operate. The text that guides him is not a work of political thought. Its The Art of the Deal.

The difference in style between Mr. Trump and Washingtonians is obvious. D.C. is a conventional, boring place. Washingtonians follow procedure. Presidents, senators, congressmen and judges are all expected to play to type, to intone the obligatory phrases and clichs, to nod their heads at the appropriate occasions, and, above all, to not disrupt the established order. We watch Morning Joe during breakfast, attend a round table on the liberal international order at lunch, and grab dinner after our summer kickball game. No glitz, no glam, no excitement.

Washingtonians avoid conflict. When someone is disruptive on the Metro we shuffle our feet, look another way, turn in the opposite direction. Residents of the most literate city in America, we do not shout, we read silently. We lament partisanship, and we pine for a lost age when Democrats and Republicans went out for drinks after a long day on Capitol Hill. The extent of our unanimity is apparent in the Politico poll of bipartisan insiders, the vast majority of which, regardless of party or ideology, tend to agree on who is up, who is down, who will win, who will lose.

To say that Donald Trump challenges this consensus is an understatement. Not only is he politically incorrect, but his manner, habits and language run against everything Washington professionals in particular, people like Reince Priebus have been taught to believe is right and good.

This is what distinguishes him from recent outsider presidents such as Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan: Both had a long history of involvement in politics, and thought the Washington political class might play some role in reform. Mr. Trump does not.

In this respect, Mr. Trump has more in common with Jimmy Carter. Neither president had much governing experience before assuming office (Mr. Trump, of course, had none). Like Mr. Carter, Mr. Trump was carried to the White House on winds of change he did not fully understand. Members of their own parties viewed both men suspiciously, and both relied on their families. Neither president, nor their inner circles, meshed with the tastemakers of Washington. And each was reactive, hampered by events he did not control.

If President Trump wants to avoid Mr. Carters fate, he might start by recognizing that a war on every front is a war he is likely to lose, and that victory in war requires allies. Some even live in the swamp.

Matthew Continetti is editor in chief of The Washington Free Beacon.

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A version of this op-ed appears in print on July 31, 2017, on Page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Goes Rogue.

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Trump Goes Rogue - New York Times