Things that happen every year at a certain time can be fun. Think birthdays, anniversaries, cherry blossoms, and The American Spectator’s gala. This year’s gala was more than a success. It was more than a hit. It was magical. The music was good, the food was good, the faces were cheery, and everyone there seemed to want to be there. We saw a nice video greeting from Jon Voight, trailed by the Reagan trailer, followed by Lila Rose accepting an award for her holy work saving innocent souls in the womb. Even the speeches were good, and Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) hit the keynote in describing how his medical career prepared him for his political career, and how he discovered during the COVID-19 pandemic that political motivations and medical crises create a toxic brew. Yet — not to minimize the well-structured and well-delivered vibe of the entire event — the spell that bound this magical evening came when editor Paul Kengor and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pulled up chairs on the stage and sat down for a back-porch gabfest. The Kennedys: Old Democrat Family Doing Things the Old Democrat Way Rather than provide a transcript, permit me to offer an impression and to try to convey the moment, the feeling, and the flavor, but not necessarily all the content. We got a sense of old Joseph Kennedy Sr.’s house, with Joe Jr, as the “golden child” and the apple of his father’s eye. He made the family proud, but he sadly went down with his fighter plane in the Pacific in World War II. Then Jack filled in and, after serving as a senator from Massachusetts, he went on to win the presidency. Nephew Robert Jr. sat in the front row at the inauguration. He was proud of how Uncle Jack was striving to keep America out of wars while shouting down the mongers and the mongrels. (READ MORE: How Kamala Bested Newsom in Their Decades-Long Feud) Even after President Kennedy sent advisers to Vietnam, there were fewer military men on that mission than were sent by him to protect one black student at the University of Mississippi. When the injury toll in Vietnam reached 75, the president signed an order to bring all the men back stateside. He was shot within a month of that, and Lyndon B. Johnson pushed things in the other direction, eventually sending over a half-million men, a tenth of whom came home in body bags. RFK Jr. told us about current events as well. He explained the history of Secret Service details. Originally, the protection provided by that agency during campaigns was limited to the two major-party candidates. But after his father, Robert F. Kennedy Sr., was shot during a campaign rally, the policy was changed overnight and agents were assigned to third-party candidates as well. He — RFK Jr. — was the first candidate of his stature to be denied protection since that era. He had received numerous threats and appealed several times for protection. Indeed, he got the clear impression that the reason he was denied was not that people in power wanted to see him hurt, but that they were seeking to impoverish his campaign. Because smaller-party candidates have smaller donation limits, the million dollars a month he had to spend on private security was a major drain on resources. The Democratic Party of old was devoted to free speech and wide-open access to long-shots and outsiders in primary campaigns. RFK Jr.’s own family, as loyal as they were to the Democratic Party, did not hesitate to mount campaigns against incumbents, like his father challenging Lyndon Johnson in 1968 and his Uncle Ted competing with Jimmy Carter in 1980. Now the culture within that party has shifted so radically, even to the point that they manipulated events so that Kamala Harris could become this year’s candidate without a primary and a convention challenge. In one pithy insight, RFK Jr. noted that the demos have little to say among “Democrats.” How ironic, how sad! (RELATED: RFK Jr.’s Fight for Principle) He told an amazing story that has not been reported on at all. A man came to one of his campaign rallies with a bag full of weapons. He presented a badge as a U.S. Marshal, indicating he was there to assist the security team. He was brazen enough to try to deceive the professional protectors, but a sharp-eyed member of Kennedy’s team thought the badge looked a little too shiny. It did not give an impression of being worn out with extensive use. They confronted him and discovered two weapons on his person and many more in a tote bag. There was so much more, and it is well worth your time to listen to the recording. Let me conclude with his trenchant insights about Trump. RFK Jr. shared an anecdote from some years ago in which his wife wanted to attend an event in Florida, but he didn’t want to spend the money. She asked Trump to bankroll her trip, and he agreed. RFK asked her, “Doesn’t he know that I sued him twice over environmental issues on his properties?” She replied that he did, but didn’t take it personally. RFK has made his deal with Trump. He consented to drop his campaign and offer his endorsement in exchange for his issues — including better supervision of foods and medicines — becoming part of the campaign. Trump has not just offered nominal backing in some political paper or on a website; he has actually incorporated them into his rhetoric at public rallies. A special guy. A special mission. All were a great fit for this special event. The post <i>The American Spectator</i>’s Gala Provides a Glimpse Into the Kennedy Family appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

While the gap may be closing, polls tend to show that more Americans trust former President Donald Trump than Vice President Kamala Harris on economic issues. This sentiment is understandable, given the strong pre-pandemic economy during Trump’s first term and the challenges of inflation and declining real wages under the Biden–Harris administration. However, voters pinning their economic hopes on a Trump comeback might find themselves disappointed. There’s no denying that the Trump-era economy prior to COVID-19 was good. Low unemployment, strong GDP growth, and a booming stock market were hallmarks of his presidency. In contrast, the Biden–Harris years have been marked by an erosion of American families’ purchasing power. Adding to voter skepticism about a Harris economy is the vice president’s apparent lack of a clear pro-growth vison. She’s flip-flopped on many issues while rarely talking to the press. It’s difficult to know what she really believes about critical economic matters like health care and fracking. When Harris has given specifics, they’ve been awful. That includes her anti-price gouging idea, which she has repeated many times, and her desire to hike corporate and capital-gains tax rates. She obviously believes growth comes from government. However, I have to wonder whether a second Trump term would deliver the economic resurgence voters hope for. The circumstances Trump would inherit are far more challenging than those he faced in 2017. Consider government debt. On the eve of the pandemic, outstanding public debt was too high — around $18 trillion — but paled in comparison to the current $28 trillion or so. There’s no reason to trust Trump to cut spending or pass the necessary reforms, in part because he explicitly says he won’t touch Social Security and Medicare, the two main drivers of our fiscal problems. In addition, even with the economy booming during Trump’s first term, he and Congress nevertheless managed to grow the budget deficit to nearly $1 trillion. It stands at nearly $2 trillion today and is projected to reach $2.8 trillion in 10 years. Trump may believe he’ll bring enough economic growth to wash away our financial troubles. But he’s mistaken. The scale of the current debt and future indebtedness is so large that economic growth alone won’t be enough. There is a lot of evidence that debt can act as a drag on the economy. One of Trump’s most pro-growth achievements was the 2017 tax-cut package, perhaps only surpassed by his regulatory reforms. Some provisions are scheduled to expire after 2025, and Congress will probably make the extension worse than the original law. Democrats are pushing hard to raise child credits and other counterproductive tax breaks. With deficits so high, there will be simultaneous pressure to raise taxes in anti-growth ways. With a willing Congress, Trump might manage to further lower taxes on corporate income and capital gains. But cutting taxes is unsustainable without cutting spending, and he’s made the budget math even more daunting by recklessly promising to lift the cap on state and local tax deductions and exempt tip income, overtime pay, and Social Security income from taxation (amounting to trillions of dollars). Trump could achieve lots of growth with a rigorous energy-deregulation program, but that’s a serious political challenge that requires discipline and a team he may not have. Other Trump policy proposals would be destructive. He feels strongly that he’d have “a better instinct than, in many cases, people that would be on the Federal Reserve or the chairman” in setting interest rates. If he decides as president that he’s the one who should control monetary policy, he’d be further politicizing what should be an impartial, methodical job, meaning serious trouble in the long run. More bad news is Trump’s just-announced wish to cap interest rates on credit card debt. Price controls proposed by Republicans are just as destructive as those proposed by Democrats. An economy can survive a lot of abuses from the government, but it’s almost impossible to endure politicians’ attempts to overrule supply and demand, which lead to serious shortages and other problems. Awful, too, is Trump’s proposal to impose across-the-board 10%-20% tariffs, with a special 60 percent levy on Chinese goods. This would be enormously costly for consumers and damage relationships with our best and most loyal trading partners, denying Americans things we want and need. The allure of returning to pre-pandemic economic prosperity is strong, but no administration can simply turn back the clock. Given some of the policies Trump is talking about on the campaign trail, he might have a harder time than people believe. Veronique de Rugy is the George Gibbs Chair in Political Economy and a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. To find out more about Veronique de Rugy and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM READ MORE: The Real Relationship Between Trump-Style Tariffs and Economic Growth Welcome Elon Musk’s Efficiency Commission (Just Don’t Expect Congress To) Welcome to the Permission-Slip Economy The post Why We Shouldn’t Expect a Return to the Trump Economy appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

WASHINGTON — Public opinion on the Oct. 7 attacks that killed 1,200 in Israel has flipped among Gazans, according to a recent poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. A majority of Gazans now believe the Hamas terror spree was incorrect, Reuters reported last week. That’s a first. And yet, last week the United Nations approved a nonbinding resolution — by a 124-14 vote — that demanded Israel end its “unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory.” The United States and Israel provided two of the 14 no votes to the Palestinian-drafted measure; 43 countries abstained. “The United Nothing,” scoffed Andrew Tucker, director general of The Hague Initiative for International Co-operation — thinc — as I sat with Tucker and other thinc staff Thursday. “Pretty much everything that the U.N. has ever done on Israel is nonbinding.” Tucker believes the purpose of these U.N. votes is to “win the PR war.” So while Israel defends its right to exist, the U.N. shows itself to be increasingly irrelevant with nonbinding measures to undermine the only democracy in the Middle East. It’s disappointing to go through the votes of countries that preen about their superior politics — yet their leaders can’t even stand against a resolution that doesn’t do anything. Canada abstained. The U.K. abstained. Germany abstained. The leaders of these august nations rightly bristled when then-President Donald Trump downplayed the importance of NATO. And here they are, ducking in plain sight. Australia abstained. Sweden abstained. Switzerland, too. And it’s barely a story. Iran voted for the resolution — as would be expected, given Tehran’s funding and support for the Oct. 7 massacre. But Japan voted in favor of the anti-Israel resolution, along with France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Iceland, and Spain. Sad. As Tucker noted, “The world knows it needs Israel, and yet at the same time, there’s a diplomatic war against Israel.” It’s as if there are two homes in America for magical thinking on the Middle East: U.N. Plaza and college campuses. “It feeds into antisemitism on the campuses,” Tucker said of the U.N. vote. Activists who toss out phrases like “genocide” and “apartheid” will have a new talking point: “illegal occupation.” Olimpia Galiberti, a researcher with thinc, sees TikTok’s hand in campus protests that support boycotting, divesting and sanctioning Israel. Students who get their “news” from social media don’t know much about Israel’s history or its vital role in checking Iran. So kudos to the 12 countries that voted with Israel and the U.S.: Argentina, Czech Republic, Fiji, Hungary, Malawi, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Tonga, and Tuvalu. They’re hardly the big names in Turtle Bay, and yet they’ve shown the common sense lacking among the pecksniffs of London, Paris and Berlin. Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM READ MORE: Liberal Neighbors to JD Vance — Hillbilly, Go Home Kamala Harris Talks to NABJ — Five Takeaways The post United Nations: As Irrelevant as a Campus Protest appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

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