The Madison Square Garden rally was bringing the Trump power right into the heart of deep blue New York City. Even there, President Donald Trump, a son of the city, proved that the MAGA power would shine…

Tens of thousands of people hoping to “make New York red again” lined up the streets of Midtown Manhattan to snag a first-come, first-serve seat at President Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden…

We need a biblical approach to crucial issues: The new book by Allie Beth Stuckey, Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion (Sentinel, 2024) is selling quite well, and for good reason.…

When Donald Trump campaigned for president in 2016, one of his most memorable and oft-repeated promises was to “drain the swamp” in Washington, D.C. This catchy phrase resonated with millions of Americans who felt alienated from their government and frustrated with political favors. However, eight years later, both the Harris and Trump campaigns are making it clear that their candidate doesn’t want to drain the swamp. They’d like more of us to jump in. The “drain the swamp” slogan originally meant clearing out the entrenched interests, self-serving practices, rent seekers and systemic corruption that have taken root in our nation’s capital. Well-connected companies scratch the backs of politicians and in return get subsidies, tax breaks, protections and other special privileges. The rest of us are left to foot the bill. In addition, there’s the revolving door between government and lobbyists. There are career politicians who seem more interested in their own power and income-earning opportunities than in serving the people. There’s the influence of big money, whose loudest detractors often fail to mention that an ever-expanding government creates the perfect swamp habitat. Draining the swap is all fine. As someone who’d like to see all government-granted favors to private businesses terminated either constitutionally or legislatively, I’m for it. How many Boeing-type scandals do we need before legislators are embarrassed to continue passing out subsidies (including through the Export-Import Bank, an agency many of us call “Boeing’s Bank”)? How many more reports like those showing that most Inflation Reduction Act subsidies went to projects that were already in the works? These debacles, and others like Solyndra, are cautionary tales about how politicians waste your money to help their friends and political allies — that is, their cronies. Sadly, most Americans don’t realize government handouts don’t do what politicians tell you they do. And so, during Trump’s first term, we saw him proudly announcing steel tariffs — essentially a tax paid by U.S. consumers — on national television, surrounded by all his steel CEO friends. He distributed subsidies and bailouts to various companies, as well as payouts to farmers who were hurt by his tariffs. Then, with several enormous pieces of legislation like the CHIPS and Science Act and the infrastructure bill, the Biden-Harris administration took corporate welfare to a level unseen before. The swamp is thriving and the creatures it supports are alive and well. Now both candidates want to add more swamp creatures to the mix: some of us. Take Trump. During this campaign, rather than touting far-reaching pro-growth policies, he’s promised one favor after another to handpicked constituencies, including cutting taxes on Social Security benefits and maybe even lifting all taxes on the police and the military. Not to be outdone, Kamala Harris promises forgivable business loans for specific minority entrepreneurs, better regulation of cryptocurrency to protect Black men, and subsidies for parents needing childcare and for working mothers. Both have promised extensive tax credits to parents, no taxes on tips, and subsidies to first-time homeowners. If you don’t fit into the right categories, you’re out of luck. That’s because your tax bill will be higher than that of the Americans who receive the better breaks. More will come out of your pocket as the favors extended by pandering politicians take the form of debt and higher future taxes. Inflation, fed by all that circulating handout cash, will eat away at your savings and jack up the price of food and other necessities. And, as if these consequences aren’t bad enough, both Harris and Trump have plans for those they like to blame for America’s problems. Harris is committed to punishing whomever she can for the inflation that happened on her administration’s watch and hurt us all. That includes grocery stores and other retailers. When she speaks of taxing the rich, that mostly means innovators, employers and the highly successful. Trump, as always, promises to punish with tariffs consumers who feel compelled to purchase affordable goods and services originating abroad. He also promises to deport immigrants, including, it seems, many who work and cause no trouble. Trump’s promise to drain the swamp tapped into a real and justified frustration with Washington. Entrenched corporate interests shouldn’t be rewarded by politicians with handouts at our expense. Neither should individuals singled out for favors by politicians on the campaign trail. 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 The post Will Trump or Harris Drain the Swamp, or Invite You In? appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

According to the Pennsylvania Department of State’s presidential election data, in 2020 Joe Biden won Pennsylvania by 80,555 votes. When he did so, Pennsylvania Democrats had a 685,818 voter registration advantage over Republicans.  But today, thanks in significant part to an aggressive and prolonged statewide Republican voter registration campaign, the Democrat advantage has been reduced to 297,824.  Regarding this remarkable achievement, the October 24 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer offered the following: “We’ve made up ground … since the last presidential election,” Trump senior adviser and Pennsylvania native Tim Murtaugh said. “Do you think that happened by magic? That’s the ground game. Registering voters is tangible proof of the strength. This hasn’t been cooked up in the last month. It takes a long time to make up a [300,000] voter registration advantage.” With the close last week of registrations,  the voter tally is 3,971,087 Democrat, 3,673,242 Republican, and 1,442,944 unaffiliated or other parties.  There are 67 counties in Pennsylvania, and Republicans have had net registration gains in 60 of them. Democrats have increased their registration advantage in only three counties. But, since 2020, there have been 1,139,176 new voter registrations of which 431,820 are Democrats, 399,354 are Republicans, and 308,002 are unaffiliated. Put another way, though the Democrat new registrants led the Republicans by only 32,466, the unaffiliated new registrations are close behind both parties. This movement to the unaffiliated ranks is underway across America.  The point here is that, with 1.4 million unaffiliated registered Pennsylvania voters and a 2020 victory margin of 80,555 votes, the overall significance of the narrowing of the Democrat-Republican registration edge — though encouraging — becomes somewhat murky. In any event, after four years of Bidenomics, the Democrats’ hold on Philadelphia has begun to erode. Consider the story bearing this headline from the Oct. 2 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer: In deep-blue Philly, working class voters are shifting toward Republicans. Democrats have lost the most ground in neighborhoods where poverty rates are the highest. It could hurt Kamala Harris in November.  [Author’s note: As a former contributor to the Inquirer, it is a credit to the paper’s hyper-woke editorial board that they ran this piece despite what must have been their overwhelming anguish at doing so.]  What follows is a well-sourced analysis of the profound changes in the Philadelphia electorate as the Democrats have become the party of the wealthy managerial class and the Republicans have become the party of the working class. It opens with the  story of Gabriel Lopez, a 27-year-old home health aide, who “grew up in a family of Democrats in the Kensington neighborhood of deep-blue Philadelphia.”  Mr. Lopez voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, but this year switched his registration to Republican and plans to vote for Trump. Here’s what he told the Inquirer: “Democrats keep saying [Trump] is going to bring down the economy, but he was already president for four years, and taxes were lower. We’re tired of the same politics. We got a different kind of guy, and the people actually love him.”  Then there is this from Rafael Alvarez Febo, a Puerto Rican LGBTQ community leader who plans to vote for Kamala Harris: “Many of us have people in our families who have gone to jail, or gone to schools that have failed us. We’re not trustful of the government. Then you have someone like Trump, who is a liar, and for some people it’s like, ‘you know something? He’s an honest representation of what we feel.’”  Then there is Charlie O’Connor, a Republican leader in Philadelphia’s 45th Ward, who advises that hundreds of former Democrats in his area have switched to Republican. Quoth Mr. O’Connor: “The question you ask at the door — doesn’t matter, Black, white (sic) — is: Are you better off than you were four years ago? That’s the universal message. And people aren’t.”  And later in the article, Mr. O’Connor sums it up this way: “When I first started in politics in 1978, the managerial class was Republican — no one votes the way their bosses vote. Now, most people in the managerial class vote Democratic and no one is voting the way their boss is. Most of the Democrats and the Democratic Party has (sic) become the party of the upper middle class.”  The article notes that, in 2020, Philadelphia accounted for 20 percent of Pennsylvania’s Democrat vote. But by 2022, that had dropped to 15 percent and is expected to go lower in 2024 as the working class — Black, White and Latino — continues to “move right.”  All of this, of course, is good news for Trump. The challenge facing Philadelphia’s Democrat machine is how to convince working class voters that the “reproductive rights” so valued by relatively well-off suburban women and “saving democracy” from Trump (who somehow forgot to destroy democracy during his previous term in office) are more important than eating, having a roof over your head, and paying the bills.  Or, as Mr. Alavarez Febo described Democrat efforts to turn out the Philadelphia vote, “They’re saying Kamala is going to save our democracy. That means very little for people who can’t keep the lights on.” But in the end, what does all this mean when it comes to actual voting? The Republican registration effort is premised on the belief that, as a general rule, people will vote consistent with their party affiliation. However, while the increased Republican registrations are welcome news, it is prudent to consider this note of caution from the Pew Research Center: Partisan identification provides a broad portrait of voters’ affinities and loyalties. But while it is indicative of voters’ preferences, it does not perfectly predict how people intend to vote in elections, or whether they will vote.  Just so. In fact, party registration all too often lags behind voting behavior.  On the other hand, increased voter registrations do provide party leaders with longer lists of potential donors and more targets for voter turn out efforts.  Which brings us to the massive and — for Republicans — innovative efforts to “chase the vote” that are underway in Pennsylvania. That will be the subject of my next installment. So stay tuned. George Parry is a former federal and state prosecutor and retired trial lawyer. For many years he was a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer before it descended into woke madness. He blogs at knowledgeisgood.net. Photo: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Attribution: King of Hearts / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0 The post Report From Pennsylvania: Part Two appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Two weeks before the 1972 election, in which Democratic Senator George McGovern challenged Republican President Richard Nixon, the former appeared on ABC’s “Issues and Answers” where reporter Frank Reynolds asked, “You have likened President Nixon to Adolf Hitler. You have implied President Nixon is barbaric in his conduct of the war and you have repeatedly used personal attacks in your campaign against the President. How do you reconcile this with your views that issues should be rationally discussed and that harsh rhetoric is counterproductive?” When Harris and Clinton talk like this, they are not merely defaming Trump. They are purposely slandering the former president’s supporters. Reynolds went on to suggest that the public was not enthusiastic about the tone of McGovern’s campaign: “There is a good amount of public opinion that you have used some of the most strident language of any Presidential campaign ever.” Inevitably, McGovern denied comparing Nixon to Hitler. “I have said that the dropping of several million tons of bombs on the civilian population of Indochina is the most barbaric thing that has happened since World War II, since the Nazis were in power and I believe that, I don’t retract that for one minute.” The voters were unconvinced by this answer or much else about McGovern’s campaign. A couple of weeks later, Nixon won 60 percent of the popular vote, defeating McGovern in a 49-state Electoral College landslide. There’s a lesson in this for the Democratic Party and the presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris if they have eyes to see it. It appears, however, that Harris and her surrogates suffer from a learning disability where incendiary rhetoric is concerned. Last week, for example, Harris called former President Donald Trump a “fascist” at a CNN town hall and Hillary Clinton appeared on the same network to accuse him of emulating a 1939 pro-Nazi rally held in Madison Square Garden: One other thing that you’ll see next week, Kaitlan, is Trump actually reenacting the Madison Square Garden rally in 1939. I write about this in my book. President Franklin Roosevelt was appalled that neo-Nazis, fascists, in America, were lining up to essentially pledge their support for the kind of government that they were seeing in Germany. So, I don’t think we can ignore it. Now, it may be a leap for some people, and a lot of others may think, I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to say that. But please, open your eyes to the danger that this man poses to our country. The irony is that such rhetoric is far more dangerous than any political rally. It is this kind of language that causes attempts on Trump’s life by unbalanced individuals like Thomas Crooks and Ryan Routh. Moreover, when Harris and Clinton talk like this, they are not merely defaming Trump. They are purposely slandering the former president’s supporters. It is no coincidence that Clinton devotes so much verbiage to “neo-Nazis, fascists, in America, lining up to essentially pledge their support for the kind of government that they were seeing in Germany.” She was clearly equating MAGA gatherings with Nuremberg rallies. And lest you think this was just random hyperbole that spontaneously occurred to Clinton, consider what Kamala Harris’s running mate told a Nevada crowd Sunday morning: “Donald Trump’s got this big rally going at Madison Square Garden. There’s a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid-1930s at Madison Square Garden. And don’t think that he doesn’t know for one second exactly what they’re doing there.” The deployment of such inflammatory rhetoric is part of a desperate strategy to “other” Donald Trump and his voters. Yet, as Bret Stephens writes in the New York Times, this is unjust and ineffective: The politics of name-calling, which happens every time Trump’s voters are told they are racists, misogynists, weird, phobic, low-information or, most recently, supporters of a fascist — and, by implication, fascists themselves. Aside from being gratuitous and self-defeating — what kind of voter is going to be won over by being called a name? — it’s also mostly wrong. Trump’s supporters overwhelmingly are people who think the Biden-Harris years have been bad for them and the country. Maybe liberals should try to engage the argument without belittling the person. This is good advice, but it’s difficult to follow when you’re losing. And, make no mistake, the Trump campaign has what George H.W. Bush used to call “the big mo.” The Harris campaign began with a lot of money, very favorable coverage in the corporate media, all the benefits of incumbency and a bump in the polls. Yet, somehow, neither she nor her advisors have been able to exploit these advantages. Consequently, the cascading themes of her campaign have descended from “joy” to dark warnings about the dangerous authoritarian tendencies of the Bad Orange Man. Yet he is clearly edging past her in the home stretch. Meanwhile, this closing paragraph is being written an hour after the Trump rally in Madison Square Garden began, and the Nazis are conspicuous by their absence. Indeed, this is a genuinely joyful — and diverse — gathering of patriotic Americans. Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe stepped up to the dais and joked, “Hillary Clinton said that this is a Nazi rally here today. Can you believe that? For the most anti-war president of my entire lifetime, and she calls him Hitler.” This reminds me of a longstanding truism that goes, “In any political debate, the first person to yell ‘fascist’ has admitted defeat.” This is good news for Trump. The post Whoever Yells ‘Fascist’ First Loses appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

It’s not enough to say that America is no longer a reliable ally to any of our strategic friends. Through a combination of the Biden-Harris administration’s negligence, stupidity, and wholly unrealistic view of the world, we’ve become a tragic imitation of an ally. Negligence? It’s proven redundantly by the Defense Department Inspector Generals’ report on our recent shipment of military gear and ammunition to Taiwan. Let’s remember that Taiwan — the Republic of China — is our principal source of many of the highest-technologically sophisticated microprocessor chips and is threatened daily by China, which claims it to be a renegade province. You would expect some condemnation of the attack on Netanyahu’s home from the White House, but there was none. Neither Biden nor Harris said a word. We need to remember at this point that our “One China” policy was one of the worst achievements of the Jimmy Carter administration. We allowed mainland China to be that “one China,” ending our diplomatic relations with Taiwan and letting Communist China replace it on the world stage. The DoD IG report, dated September 12, said that we had sent Taiwan a big shipment of equipment and ammunition. The problem is that the ammunition is expired like sour milk. Other supplies we sent were similar. Among them were tactical vests that were so moldy as to be unusable. That’s a clear message to the Taiwanese: get lost, we don’t care about what happens to you. These supplies were sent at the same time China was threatening Taiwan by flying combat aircraft all around it and sending hundreds of combat ships into and around the Taiwan Strait. Taiwan wants to remain a democracy and we’re not supporting it. It’s entirely possible that our ammunition supplies and other equipment are so depleted by aid to Ukraine that we couldn’t send anything the Taiwanese need. But if that’s true, we should have sent them nothing and increased production so that we can meet their needs. Instead, Biden has announced another $400 million in aid to Ukraine. We should not oppose that aid, but recognizing that Ukrainian President Zelensky’s “victory plan” only calls for more aid and an invitation to join NATO, his plans — and ours — badly need revision. Blinken’s Bungling of the Middle East And then there’s Israel. About ten days ago, an Hizballah — or Iranian — drone attack was made against the home of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It was clearly an attempt to assassinate him. Fortunately, it failed because he and his wife weren’t at home when the drone hit. You would expect some condemnation of the attack on Netanyahu’s home from the White House, but there was none. Neither Biden nor Harris said a word. We should remember that Iran regards us as “the Great Satan” and Israel as the “Little Satan.” Iran has taken many American lives by terrorism. In short, the Israelis are fighting a war against our enemies, not just theirs. It’s long past time for Biden/Harris to recognize that fact but, again, electoral politics stands in the way. They continue to fret over the Muslim vote in Michigan and elsewhere, which is why they always fail to condemn Hizballah, Iran, and Hamas. For sheer stupidity and a bizarre worldview, it’s impossible to top our chief diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken. On his eleventh trip to Israel and the region since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, Blinken again urged Israeli cease-fire agreements in the Gaza war and in Israel’s attack on Hizballah forces and arms depots in Lebanon. Hizballah — with its near-constant rain of missiles on Israeli civilians — began that fight decades ago. This time, Blinken generously said that a cease-fire would be predicated on disarming Hizballah. Hizballah launched missiles at Tel Aviv while Blinken was there demanding cease-fires. That is so preposterous an idea that the ayatollahs and their Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps must have had a good laugh. That statement by Blinken pretty much sums up his understanding of the world: he has none. Hizballah, like Hamas and the Houthis in Yemen, are armed, funded, and ideologically supported by Iran. The Iranians cannot be talked out of it by Blinken or anyone else. The least Blinken could have done is to demand the return of the hostages Hamas took in 2023 but he didn’t even do that. Included among the approximately 240 hostages taken were at least seven U.S. citizens, three of whom are believed to still be alive. About 100 Israeli hostages may be alive. The others have been murdered by Hamas while in captivity. Biden, Harris, and Blinken have done precisely nothing to obtain the return of any of the hostages. And then there’s NATO. As I have written elsewhere, NATO’s members — supposedly unified in support of Ukraine — are divided and arguing among themselves. The only way Ms. Harris could unite them is around Biden’s policy of appeasement of their enemies. Under the Biden-Harris regime, American leadership has faded to insignificance and with it our ability to influence world affairs. As this column has also pointed out, diplomacy only works when military force is a serious threat to our enemies, the “mailed fist inside the velvet glove.” Biden and Harris don’t understand that. Neither does Blinken or National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, their principal advisers. Harris Neglects the Border For Harris and Biden, America’s national security is secondary to electoral politics. Harris promises falsely to improve border security despite the facts of her beliefs. Don’t forget that Bernie Sanders, asked about her supposed policy changes, said that she’s only saying what’s necessary to get elected. The fact that our open borders have admitted — purportedly legally — about 600 members of the hyper-violent Tren de Aragua Venezuelan gang proves — again redundantly — the falsity of her promises. The best the Department of Homeland Security has done so far is to identify the 600 with “possible connections” to that gang and place about 100 of them on a watch list. This is after, as Fox News reported, that gang members had passed DHS screening after their gang tattoos had been spotted by the Border Patrol. Why aren’t the gang members being deported immediately? In all probability because DHS has no idea where they are. They could look, for example, in Aurora, Colorado where the gang had recently taken control of apartment buildings. Like him or not, former President Trump is the only candidate who would even try to restore our influence around the world, secure our border, and begin to rebuild our military. He understands that the key to American national security is American prosperity. Granted that it’s a low bar to hurdle, he would do a vastly better job than a Harris administration would ever conceive of. The post What Great Allies We Are appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Solving the Mystery of Europe’s Rise In October 2024, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm announced that the Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to three economists who studied why some countries are rich while others remain poor. Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson were honored for showing “the importance of institutions to a country’s prosperity.” Their research demonstrated that freer and more open societies are more likely to thrive. In 2002, when I began teaching international business at Old Dominion University’s doctoral program, I came across one of their working papers titled “The Rise of Europe: Atlantic Trade, Institutional Change, and Economic Growth.” China’s economy has grown substantially, and a large middle class has emerged, yet democracy is nowhere to be found. Their research aimed to investigate how Europe rose rapidly between 1500 and 1850, creating the capitalist system we know today. Europe at that time had many countries, but only a few experienced significant economic success. The key question they sought to answer was: Why did only some nations rise? They began by reconstructing historical data, including statistics from over 2,200 European cities, such as GDP and urbanization rates. Through econometric analysis, they identified two crucial factors that determined which countries thrived during this period. The first was trade, specifically Atlantic trade routes to the Americas. The second was the initial political and economic institutions in a country. In particular, they found that more open and less absolutist monarchs, who allowed non-royal classes to benefit from trade, enabled economic growth.  In Britain and the Netherlands, both had Atlantic trade routes and relatively open monarchies, which facilitated their rise. Meanwhile, Portugal and Spain, despite engaging in Atlantic trade earlier, had absolutist monarchs who restricted trade benefits to the royal class, leading to their eventual decline. Italy, though blessed with relatively benevolent rulers, lacked access to Atlantic ports and therefore did not participate in transatlantic trade, preventing its rise. The three Nobel laureates explained that trade with the Americas was crucial because it allowed nations to acquire colonial resources and use forced labor for profit. Though trade with the Americas accounted for only 4 percent of these nations’ GDP, it was enough to empower the emerging bourgeoisie, who in turn challenged royal authority, demanded the rule of law, and pushed for the protection of private property rights. This led to the institutional reforms that laid the foundation for modern capitalism. The laureates emphasized the crucial role of the bourgeoisie in institutional change. Political economists like Barrington Moore have often regarded the bourgeoisie as a middle class, caught between the aristocracy above and the proletariat below. The aristocracy had privileges and often exploited the bourgeoisie, while the proletariat, having nothing to lose but their chains, were inclined toward revolution. Revolutions often resulted in the execution of monarchs and the dismantling of productive institutions. However, because the bourgeoisie had property and wealth, they tended to favor reform over revolution, advocating for fair rules rather than chaos. They used their economic power to push for laws that even the monarchs had to obey, thereby creating the legal framework for capitalism. The Challenge of the Chinese Model I was deeply impressed by their research, as I was reflecting on China’s path of reform at the time. Under Mao Zedong’s rule, China’s economy collapsed. After Mao’s death, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began reform and opening up. The CCP allowed non-party individuals to do business and prosper, akin to the more open monarchs in Britain and the Netherlands. The CCP also exploited China’s “low human rights” advantage, similar to the use of forced labor by British and Dutch colonists. Furthermore, China’s Belt and Road Initiative and expansion into Africa resemble colonial policies. Just as Britain and the Netherlands rose through trade with the Americas, China’s rise also depends on global trade. In the late 1990s, China eagerly sought to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), but faced resistance because it was not a market economy. Developed nations, eager for profits and hopeful for China’s future, supported its WTO entry. U.S. President Bill Clinton, for instance, famously said that China’s economic growth would create a middle class, which would then demand democracy, as history had shown. Over 20 years later, China’s economy has grown substantially, and a large middle class has emerged, yet democracy is nowhere to be found. Why hasn’t China’s middle class pushed for democracy as Europe’s did centuries ago? The answer lies in the CCP’s mastery of how to maintain one-party rule indefinitely: through control. The CCP controls all resources in China. Chinese citizens (note that I do not refer to them as “citizens” in the democratic sense) need the CCP’s approval for everything, from birth to education, housing, employment, and even business operations. Their wealth and property can be confiscated by the CCP at any time. In this environment, no one is truly independent of the CCP, and thus they cannot use their wealth to challenge the Party’s authority. On this issue, experts and politicians worldwide, including myself, have been mistaken. Now, applying the Nobel laureates’ research on Europe’s rise to China, we can see that under Deng Xiaoping (ruled from 1979-1989), Jiang Zemin (ruled 1989-2002), and Hu Jintao (ruled 2002-2012), the CCP was relatively tolerant of non-party individuals making money. However, under Xi Jinping (ruling since 2012), as China has accumulated wealth and economic urgency has decreased, private entrepreneurs who have become wealthier than CCP officials are now viewed with suspicion. The CCP cadres are increasingly upset that business people under their control have more wealth than they.  The Nobel laureates argue that China’s political institutions are not open. Due to a lack of freedom, China lags behind democratic nations in innovation. While an authoritarian regime can efficiently mobilize national resources for a period of time, it is unsustainable in the long run. Nevertheless, the laureates acknowledge that China’s rapid growth presents a challenge to their theory. The Importance of International Trade to China’s Model In my view, the laureates overlook the importance of international trade to China’s model. Although China lags behind democracies in innovation, it can acquire innovations from other countries, both legally and illegally. Acquiring innovations is faster and cheaper than creating them. Additionally, China’s “low human rights” advantage and its state-driven economic model should not be underestimated. I refer to this model as “China Inc.,” where the CCP runs China like a giant corporation. The CCP is the owner and manager, with the General Secretary serving as the CEO. State-owned enterprises (SOEs) function as its strategic divisions and subsidiaries, while private businesses operate as joint ventures, in which the CCP holds a controlling stake. Foreign enterprises are essentially franchises, operating at the pleasure of the CCP. Meanwhile, the Chinese people are employees of China Inc. They cannot criticize the CEO, cannot choose where they live freely, and the Chinese money they earn is essentially internal coupons that requires CCP’s approval to convert and move overseas. The “China Inc.” model gives the CCP several advantages: agility in state-to-state affairs and national-level support for Chinese firms competing with foreign businesses. In democratic countries, the government is the referee, and companies are the players in the markets. In China Inc., the government is both the referee, the coach, and the competitor on the field. The CCP concentrates national resources to develop industries it deems important, allowing Chinese firms to outcompete foreign companies on the global stage with low-cost advantages. In international markets, no privately-owned company, no matter how large, can match the might of China Inc., which has the backing of an entire nation’s resources. As long as the world tolerates the China Inc. model, China’s low-cost products will dominate global markets, and its overcapacity will generate significant profits for China at the expense of other countries. Thus, the Chinese model can be sustained for a long time. Democratic nations must recognize the true nature of China Inc. Only then can they develop effective countermeasures. Broadly speaking, there are three strategic responses to consider. The first is to unite all nations in telling China Inc. “no” and demand that the CCP abandon its model. This would mean asking the Chinese state to stop acting as both a player and a referee and instead just be a law-abiding referee like other governments. However, it is unlikely that the CCP would willingly give up this advantage. The second option is for other nations to adopt a similar state-driven model, where governments become more actively involved in business competition. In other words, democratic nations would adopt their own versions of the China Inc. model, which would fundamentally disrupt the current global economic order. So far, no country, including the United States, has seriously considered this option. The third option is to do nothing and continue doing business with China Inc. Under this scenario, China, with its low human rights and state-driven advantages, will continue to dominate the global market. In conclusion, the China model presents a significant challenge to the traditional understanding of capitalism and global trade. The laureates’ theory holds strong for democracies, but the sustainability of China’s state-driven system requires us to rethink economic paradigms. As long as the world continues to engage with China’s unique system, we will continue to see its products and influence spread globally. Whether or not the global community will adapt to or push back against this model remains an open question. Shaomin Li is Eminent Scholar and Professor of International Business at Old Dominion University and author of The Rise of China, Inc.: How the Chinese Communist Party Transformed China into a Giant Corporation.  The post The Chinese Model’s Challenge to the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

People old enough to remember the Before Time — i.e., the time when in most everyday matters, people who weren’t causing harm were generally free to do as they liked — know what it was like to be a parent or a child and go for a drive in those times. As opposed to what it’s like now. More finely, what it requires you to have and to pay for now. J.D. Vance, Trump’s vice-president pick, got heckled for saying out loud that government-mandated “safety” seats got kids are an effective form of birth control. But he’s right. For at least two reasons that have nothing to do with the cost of the seats, themselves. There’s a subtler way that “safety” seats work to reduce the birth rate, even among the reproducing. It is by effectively requiring couples who want to have more than two kids to buy a vehicle with at least three rows of seats. The first is the disincentive to have kids knowing that if you do, you’ll have to deal with “safety” seats for years to come. In some states, until the kid is a near-teenager. That is a long time to have to spend every day strapping a kid in and out of a “safety” seat every time you drive somewhere with a kid in the car. It makes you not want to drive anywhere. It makes you not want to have kids — so you can drive without having to first deal with strapping a kid into the seat and then unstrapping the kid when you get where you were going. This probably adds at least five minutes to every trip, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but it adds up, and not just in terms of the time spent. It costs ease and spontaneity and — yes — fun. It is dreary to have to deal with these got-damned “safety” seats all the time. Even to watch some other poor bastard dealing with them makes you not want to deal with them. But the only way you can avoid having to deal with them — legally — is to avoid having kids. Voila! Of course, the immediate heckle that sallies forth is that if you don’t want to deal with strapping kids in and out all the time, you are a selfish person who does not care about the “safety” (gag me) of your child. Really? So all the parents who didn’t strap their kids in and out for all those decades before the neurotics and busybodies and control freaks (I repeat myself) succeeded in getting mandatory child-seat laws passed beginning in the ’90s were selfish people who didn’t care about the “safety” of their kids? And all those Gen X and Before Time kids who grew up free to just jump into the back seat or the front seat or the rear-facing jumpseat in the Vista Cruiser wagon were put in danger by their selfish, uncaring parents? I was one of those kids and never felt that. Also, I never got hurt, either. But I did love to go for a ride in my parents’ car. And they seemed to enjoy it, too. We all liked cars — and driving — which is what “safety” seats cause us to dislike now. More finely, I and many others dislike this neurotic obsession with risk that’s disproportionate to the costs of mitigation. There is always a degree of danger when riding in a car. It may be hypothetically greater to ride in car not buckled-up or not strapped in (if you’re a kid). But just because something might happen does not mean it will. And obsessing over the might is… neurotic. In the Before Time, only neurotics strapped their progeny into “safety” seats. Just as in the Before Time, only neurotics walked around in public wearing “masks.” But that was before neurosis metastasized and became normalized. In this time, a parent who does not strap the kid in is regarded much the same as one who refused to “mask” the kid. It is a different manifestation of the same illness. And the only way to avoid it is to have no part of it. There’s a subtler — secondary — way that “safety” seats work to reduce the birth rate, even among the reproducing. It is by effectively requiring couples who want to have more than two kids to buy a vehicle with at least three rows of seats. Because it is generally not feasible to have three “safety” seats installed in a vehicle that has only two rows of seats. Even if it were possible to fit three of them side-by-side in the back seat, it would mean having no seats back there for adults. Or having to detach one or more of these seats and put them… somewhere. Probably in the cargo area behind the back seats, thus taking up most of the vehicle’s available cargo space. If it’s a sedan we’re talking about, it will not have room for these bulky “safety” seats in the trunk. Plus, even full-size sedans are relatively small in comparison to what used to be available (and affordable). This is one reason why crossovers — which are car-based vehicles shaped to look like SUVs — have largely replaced what used to be the family sedan. Regardless, you’ll need a third row if you have a third kid that “the law” says all young kids must be strapped in a “safety” seat. And that means you will have to buy a larger, more expensive vehicle as there are no smaller vehicles (and not many mid-sized vehicles) that have a third row. The problem there, of course, is that many people cannot afford the additional thousands (if not tens of thousands) it takes to move up to a three-row crossover or SUV. That serves as a very effective form of birth control, on top of the shoot-me-now willie-wilter that comes along for every drive when you can’t just go for a drive anymore, but instead have to strap ’em in and then unstrap them when you get to wherever you’re headed. The post Birth Control Seats appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Anything can happen by Election Day next week, but Democrats are having a really scary Halloween. They fear the Great Orange Pumpkin is coming to get them, and their horror is infectious. After all, they’d thrown everything they had at Trump — falsehoods, slanders, impeachments, lawsuits, charges, bullets — but nothing has stopped or slowed his return march to the White House. Not even black magic. Now actual witches are bemoaning the fact their spells against Trump are not working. “He seems to have some kind of protection around him,” posted a member of WitchesVsPatriarchy on Reddit. Could be the same higher power that saved Trump’s life three months ago, causing him to turn his head from an assassin’s bullet at just the right instant. This thought would be more frightening to the Democratic witches who disdain all that’s holy, including their current candidate for President. In no previous election has the conflict between the sacred and profane been more manifest. During her recent exultation of child sacrifice, better known as abortion, a college student shouted to Kamala Harris, “Jesus is Lord!” Harris responded, “Oh, you guys are at the wrong rally,” to the gleeful laughter of her worshippers. By contrast, J.D. Vance took the same exclamation in stride at his rally while defending Christianity from Leftist assault. “That’s right, Jesus is King,” he said, eliciting cheers from the faith-driven crowd. In no previous election has the conflict between the sacred and profane been more manifest. And the pro-God side is winning. You can tell this from the loudening shrieking of witches, again led by Vice President Harris. Last week, Harris interrupted her infernal cackling long enough to deliver an unorthodox screed from the official VP residence to lie about her political opponent, Trump. “Who in fact vowed to be a dictator on Day One,” Harris said. “And vowed to use the military as his personal militia to carry out his personal and political vendettas. Donald Trump is increasingly unhinged and unstable.” Needless to say, Trump made no such vows. The “dictator” remark was an obvious joke. As for “increasingly unhinged and unstable,” Trump just did a live three-hour interview with Joe Rogan, following his celebrated stunt as a McDonald’s fries cook. “WHEN I’M PRESIDENT THE MCDONALD’S ICE CREAM MACHINES WILL WORK GREAT AGAIN!” Trump tweeted to much online amusement. What became clear to Harris and her Coven is that the spell of Joy spread by their media familiars has completely worn off. All that remains is sheer terror. And the signs of satanic panic are everywhere. In a video that went viral, a young woman at last week’s Harris Houston rally starts screaming in the face of a little girl in a stroller. The father has to scoop up his kid and protect her. To her credit, a black female Harris supporter pulls away the threatening harpy. But nothing reeks of leftist desperation more than their latest clueless attempt to plug the male voter exodus from the Democrat Matriarchy. In an ad that must be seen to be believed, a young punk in bed about to masturbate to porn gets interrupted by a middle-aged Republican official in a suit. “Sorry, you can’t do that,” the older man says. “What, the hell man!” cries the resident. “How’d you get in here?!” “I’m your Republican congressman. Now that we’re in charge, we’re banning porn nationwide.” “You can’t tell me what to do! Get out of my bedroom, you creep.” “I won the last election,” explains the Republican. “So it’s my decision.” The ad is so clueless, it seems a parody. On one hand, it’s unintentionally funnier than any Saturday Night Live skit in the past decade, on the other, it’s completely misguided. The actor playing the porn addict is such an obvious loser, his life so apparently worthless, he makes the heavy seem benevolent by comparison. That the liberal idiots who produced the ad — the Progress Action Fund and Defend the Vote — thought they could sway the male vote by threatening to ban porn shows how little they understand real men. They would mock the whiny pervert intended to represent them, along with their real women. As a buddy of mine texted me after seeing the ad, “What the fudge is wrong with Democrats?!” (He didn’t write “fudge.) Not to be outdone in the clueless department, former First Witch Michelle Obama attempted to revive her old spellcasting craft by nagging men into voting for Harris. Unfortunately, all she had to draw on was the Feminist 101 rulebook that her husband had soured men on a week earlier. “Our lives are worth more than their anger and disappointment!” Michelle declared. “And we are more than just baby-making vessels!” Then she jumped on her broomstick and flew away. Not really. She joined Harris onstage for some cringeworthy fake bonding. But if all goes well next week, the Democrats’ real nightmare will begin. Then, so will us Christians’ Christmas revelries. ***** Read Leonora Cravotta’s great review of my new political thriller The Washington Trail, the perfect Christmas gift book, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and wherever fine mysteries are sold. The post The Last Halloween for Democrat Witches appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.