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World

Andrei Karlov was visiting a photo gallery in the Turkish capital. (Photo: AP)

Andrei Karlov was visiting a photo gallery in the Turkish capital. (Photo: AP)

ANKARA, Turkey — Russia’s ambassador to Turkey was shot and killed after a gunman wearing a suit and tie opened fire shouting “Allahu Akbar” at a photo exhibition in Ankara on Monday. The Russian foreign ministry confirmed he was shot, though at first they they did not offer any details about his condition.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Ambassador Andrei Karlov was shot “when an unidentified assailant opened chaotic gunfire during a public event in Ankara.”

Turkish police shot and killed the gunman, according to the Turkish station NTV. The ambassador was several minutes into a speech at the embassy-sponsored exhibition in the capital when the man fired at least eight shots, according to an AP photographer in the audience.

The attacker also said some words in Russian and smashed several of the photos that had been hung for the exhibition, which was called “Russia as seen by Turks.” U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said U.S. officials were aware of reports about the shooting.

“We condemn this act of violence, whatever its source,” Kirby said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family.”

Ms. Zakharova said Russia was in contact with Turkish officials about the incident. In the video below, the gunman can be heard clearly yelling “Allahu Akbar” (God is great”).

“Don’t forget about Aleppo, don’t forget about Syria” he also yells in the video.

[brid video=”85867″ player=”2077″ title=”WATCH Russian Ambassador Assassinated by Jihadi Shouting ‘Allahu Akbar'”]

WARNING GRAPHIC: Russia's ambassador to Turkey was

Policy

food-stamp-fraud

Learning from the tremendous success of welfare reform during the Clinton Administration, the entire Washington-based welfare state should be junked.

It’s a complicated and costly mess that traps poor people in dependency while ripping off taxpayers and creating very comfortable lives for “poverty pimps.”

It would be much simpler (and more effective) to simply take all the money that’s now being spent on these programs and send it to the states as part of a “block grant” and let them figure out how best to help poor people without some ofthe negative consequencescaused by the current plethora of programs.

I’ve previously written about how this would be a very desirable reform of Medicaid. Today, let’s build upon some previous analysis and explain why it would be good to get Washington out of the business of Food Stamps.

Let’s start with the fact that the program subsidizes purchases that have nothing to do with avoiding genuine hunger and deprivation. Indeed, as documented in a story in The Federalist, Food Stamps subsidize a considerable amount of unhealthy food.

New data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture reveals food stamp recipients spent more money on sweetened beverages than they did on fruits, vegetables, bread, cereal, or milk. The USDA analyzed transactional data from a leading grocery store in 2011 and found that Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) households spent a greater percentage of money on unhealthier foods than those who didn’t use taxpayer funds to pay for their groceries. …The recent USDA study only looked at data from one grocery store retailer. It did not examine how SNAP funds were spent at convenience stores, which presumably would have significantly increased the amount of unhealthy foods purchased with taxpayer dollars.

Here are some of the details.

…The second largest expenditure for SNAP households was sweetened beverages, whereas the second largest expenditure for non-SNAP households was vegetables. …SNAP households spent 7.2 percent of their money on vegetables, while non-SNAP households spent 9.1 percent of their grocery money on this category of food. When comparing fruit purchases, the gap widens slightly: SNAP households spent 4.7 percent on fruits, and non-SNAP households spent an averages of 7.2 percent in the same category.

Here’s the comparison of purchases from those with food stamps and those using their own money.

As one might suspect, the problem has gotten worse during the profligate Bush-Obama era.

During President Obama’s tenure, the numbers and percentages of Americans using taxpayer’s money to buy their groceries has drastically increased. SNAP participation has increased 78 percent in the past ten years and remains near its all-time high… Food stamp usage also dramatically increased during President George W. Bush’s tenure… That’s because Bush signed a dramatic expansion of food welfare inside a farm bill. This expansion, among other things, made it easier to sign up and made non-citizens eligible to use U.S. taxpayers’ funds to fund grocery excursions.

By the way, I think poor people (indeed, all people) should be able to eat anything they want. That being said, there’s something perverse about subsidizing and encouraging unhealthy patterns.

Particularly when obesity is one of the biggest health problems in low-income communities.

The program also has always had major problems with fraud, as illustrated by a recent scandal in Florida.

The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida announced the largest food stamp fraud bust in U.S. history Wednesday afternoon. …500 people had their identities stolen in Palm Beach County to be used to get fake Electronic Benefit Transfer cards which were then exchanged for cash… Federal charges were filed against 22 retail store owners or operators in connection with schemes to illegally redeem food stamp benefits for cash, the Justice Department said. Indictments allege the retailers received more than $13 million in federal payments.

Even millionaires bilk the system.

A Geauga County millionaire—who comes from royalty—has been indicted on charges he illegally received food stamps and medicaid assistance. Ali Pascal Mahvi is facing four felony counts which could put him behind bars for more than four years if convicted. …Meyer informed Mahvi of the indictment at Mahvi’s 8,000 square foot home. …Prosecutors say Mahvi defrauded Medicaid out of $45,000 and about $8,400 in food stamps. Mahvi, who is the son of an Iranian prince, estimates his worth at about $120 million. His $800,000 home features five bedrooms and five bathrooms, an in-ground swimming pool, and stable with horses. Mahvi, who says he owns 70 percent of a resort in St. Lucia, says he’s played by the rules.

And some scammers become millionaires from the other end of the system.

Convenience store owner Vida Ofori Causey out of Worcester, Mass. was charged in federal court Monday after pleading guilty to $3.6 million worth of food stamp fraud. …“Causey purchased the benefits at a discounted value of approximately fifty cents for every SNAP dollar,” a press release from Department of Justice stated. “By so doing, Causey caused the USDA to electronically deposit into a bank account controlled by her the full face value of the SNAP benefits fraudulently obtained.” As a result, recipients had cash on hand to buy restricted items. The restricted items could include alcohol, cigarettes and even drugs.

Stories like this reinforce the argument that states should be in charge of the program, if for no other reason than there will be fiscal pressure not to waste so much money.

Moreover, there’s considerable evidence that states are more sensible in their approach. I’ve already written about good reforms in Maine and Wisconsin. Well, the Daily Caller has encouraging news that the good news in those states is part of a national trend.

The number of people receiving food stamps has declined sharply due in part to the reinstatement of work requirements earlier this year, according to a report Wednesday. …“Caseloads fell sharply in April, especially in states reinstating a three-month time limit for unemployed childless adults without disabilities, new Agriculture Department data show,” CBPP detailed in its report. “The data, covering the first month in which most of the roughly 20 states that imposed the time limit in January began cutting people off.” The USDA has required food stamp work requirements since an overhaul of the program in 1996. Able-bodied adults without children are required to work at least 20 hours a week or else lose their benefits after three months. …Work requirements have now been restored in a total of 40 states compared to 44 states this past June that had either a waiver or a partial waiver.

And let’s look specifically at some positive developments in Kansas.

…before Kansas instituted a work requirement, 93 percent of food stamp recipients were in poverty, with 84 percent in severe poverty. Few of the food stamp recipients claimed any income. Only 21 percent were working at all, and two-fifths of those working were working fewer than 20 hours per week. Once work requirements were established, thousands of food stamp recipients moved into the workforce, promoting income gains and a decrease in poverty. Forty percent of the individuals who left the food stamp ranks found employment within three months, and about 60 percent found employment within a year. They saw an average income increase of 127 percent. Half of those who left the rolls and are working have earnings above the poverty level. Even many of those who stayed on food stamps saw their income increase significantly. …Furthermore, with the implementation of the work requirement in Kansas, the caseload dropped by 75 percent. Previously, Kansas was spending $5.5 million per month on food stamp benefits for able-bodied adults; it now spends $1.2 million.

P.S. In the long run, the block grant should be phased out so the federal government isn’t involved at all in the business of income redistribution. If we care about the limits on federal power in Article 1, Section 8, then states should be responsible for choosing how much to raise in addition to choosing how to spend.

P.P.S. Just in case you think fraud and waste is a rare problem in the program, here are some other examples.

With stories like this, I’m surprised my head didn’t explode during this debate I did on Larry Kudlow’s show.

The tremendous success of welfare reform during

Politics

Businessman Vincent Viola enters Trump Tower in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., December 16, 2016. (Photo: REUTERS)

Businessman Vincent Viola enters Trump Tower in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., December 16, 2016. (Photo: REUTERS)

President-elect Donald J. Trump announced Monday he will nominate West Point graduate and billionaire businessman Vincent Viola for secretary of the Army.

“I am proud to have such an incredibly accomplished and selfless individual as Vincent Viola as our Secretary of the Army,” President-elect Trump said in a statement. “Whether it is his distinguished military service or highly impressive track record in the world of business, Vinnie has proved throughout his life that he knows how to be a leader and deliver major results in the face of any challenge.”

Mr. Viola, owner of the Florida Panthers hockey team, was the son of Italian immigrant who lived in Brooklyn, N.Y., who became the first in his family to attend college. He trained as an Airborne Ranger infantry officer and served in the 101st Airborne Division.

“He is a man of outstanding work ethic, integrity, and strategic vision, with an exceptional ability to motivate others,” President-elect Trump added. “The American people, whether civilian or military, should have great confidence that Vinnie Viola has what it takes to keep America safe and oversee issues of concern to our troops in the Army.”

Following the September 11, 2001, terror attacks perpetrated by al Qaeda on targets in New York and Washington, Mr. Viola helped found the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. He went on to found Virtu Financial.

“It is an honor to be nominated to serve our country as President-elect Trump’s Secretary of the Army,” said Viola. “If confirmed, I will work tirelessly to provide our President with the land force he will need to accomplish any mission in support of his National Defense Strategy. A primary focus of my leadership will be ensuring that America’s soldiers have the ways and means to fight and win across the full spectrum of conflict. This great honor comes with great responsibility, and I will fight for the American people and their right to live free every day.”

President-elect Donald J. Trump announced Monday he

Policy

Yesterday I shared some very good news about Brazil adopting a spending cap. Today, I also want to share some good news, though it’s not nearly as momentous.

Indeed, it’s not even good news. Instead, it’s just that some bad news isn’t as bad as it used to be.

I’m referring to the fact that the nation’s capital region used to be home to 10 of the nation’s 15-richest counties.

That was back in 2012, and I viewed it as a terrible sign that the DC area was packed with overpaid bureaucrats, oleaginous rent seekers, and government cronies, all of whom were enjoying undeserved wealth financed by hard-working taxpayers from the rest of America.

Well, now for the “good news.”

Terry Jeffrey has a column for CNS News about the current concentration of wealth in the national capital area.

The four richest counties in the United States, when measured by median household income, are all suburbs of Washington, D.C., according to newly released data from the Census Bureau. …Of the Top 20 richest counties in the nation, nine are suburbs of the city that serves as the seat of a federal government that in fiscal 2016 taxed away $3,266,774,000,000 from the American people, spent $3,854,100,000,000, and ran a $587,326,000,000 deficit.

The reason this awful data is good news (relatively speaking) is that the DC region is now home to “only” nine out of the 20-richest counties rather than 10 out of the 15-richest counties.

Here’s Terry’s list, which I’ve augmented by highlighting the jurisdictions that are home to many of the bureaucrats, lobbyists, and other insiders that are living on Easy Street thanks to the federal leviathan.

I also awarded a star to Los Alamos County in New Mexico since that’s another jurisdiction that has above-average income because of Uncle Sam.

To be sure, not every private-sector worker in these rich counties is a cronyist, lobbyist, or rent seeker, so it’s difficult to accurately say what share of the income and wealth in these various counties is earned and how much is a transfer from government.

But we can say with confidence that the bureaucrats who are over-represented in these jurisdictions get a lot more compensation than their counterparts in the private sector. Chris Edwards has been relentless in his efforts to document excessive pay for bureaucrats.

Since we’re on this topic, let’s enjoy some additional bits of data about the cushy life of our bureaucratic overlords.

In addition to lavish pay, federal employees also receive gold-plated benefits. Most of the money goes for pensions and healthcare, but you’ll be happy to know the feds have also figured out more creative ways of pampering the protected class.

…a variety of federal agencies in a number of locations provide “free” yoga classes to employees. But these classes are not free; since 2013, they have cost taxpayers over $150,000. The State Department spends $15,000 for yoga in the nation’s capital. A yoga instructor in from Berkeley, California is paid $4,000 a year from the Department of Agriculture’s Research Service. Of course, the Department of Energy…has gotten in on taxpayer financed yoga; but for $11,000 annually they also offer pilates at a California location. …The Railroad Retirement Board spends $11,000 annually for yoga classes for office workers at its Chicago headquarters.

And many federal bureaucrats have figured out how to enjoy another fringe benefit of federal employment.

The federal government is full of people pulling in six-figure compensation packages who spend their days…watching porn on government computers… One compulsive porno-phile over at the EPA was watching so much porn that it caught the attention of the Office of the Inspector General — i.e., he was watching so much porn that a federal official noticed — and when the OIG investigator showed up to see what the deal was, you know what that EPA guy did? He kept right on watching porn, with the OIG inspector in his office. At the FCC, bureaucratic home of the people who enforce such obscenity laws as we have, employees routinely spend the equivalent of a full workday each week watching porn. Treasury, General Service Administration, Commerce — porn, porn, and more porn. Of course nobody gets fired. Nobody ever gets fired. …Federal employees, according to OIG reports, also spend a great deal of time browsing online-dating sites (apparently without much success) and shopping.

By the way, the jab about “nobody gets fired” isn’t 100 percent accurate.

But if you want lots of job security, then latch on to the federal teat.

Federal workers are far more likely to be audited by the IRS or get arrested for drunk driving than they are to be fired from the civil service payroll for poor performance or misconduct. The odds are one-in-175 for the IRS audit and one-in-200 for the drunk driving arrest, while the odds for a fed to be fired in a given year are one-in-500, according to the Government Accountability Office. …Private sector workers face just the opposite situation. They have a roughly one-in-77 chance of being involuntarily terminated — the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t distinguish between fires and layoffs — in a given month.

By the way, bureaucrats are sometimes forced into early retirement as “punishment” for misbehavior.

All things considered, though, we serfs shouldn’t complain too much.

After all, would it be proper to grouse about a group that does superlative work?

In the ranks of the federal government, 99 percent are really good at their jobs — and almost two-thirds exceed expectations or do outstanding work. That’s the conclusion of a new report by the Government Accountability Office, which also found that 78 percent of high-level civil servants — those in GS grades 13 through 15 — were given top performance scores of outstanding or fully successful….The glowing picture of everyone in calendar year 2013, the most recent data available to auditors, is…good news for federal agencies.

In reality, of course, these glowing performance reviews are highly suspect.

…a more likely reality to many in and outside of government. Rather than so many federal workers being exceptional, the system for rating them isn’t working right. …Federal workers themselves have long complained in annual surveys that their agencies do not deal with poor performers, hurting morale and efficiency. Lawmakers complain that it is nearly impossible to fire these employees, but bills to take away some of their their rights to appeal bad reviews have languished in Congress. …“Apparently the federal bureaucrats grading one another think virtually everyone who works for the government is doing a fantastic job,” Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, said in a statement. “But given the dysfunction we’ve seen throughout the federal government over the last several years, that can’t possibly be true,” Miller said.

Of course it’s not true.

Misbehavior and malfeasance at bureaucracies such as the IRS and VA doesn’t prevent high ratings and generous bonuses. Instead, it’s almost as if doing the wrong thing is a job requirement.

Isn’t big government wonderful?

The four richest counties in the United

Policy

Housing-Market-Real-Estate-Signs

Mortgage lenders and real estate agents flood the housing market. (Phone: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

Remember the financial crisis and market meltdown from late last decade? That wasn’t a fun time, and we’re still dealing with some of the fallout.

Let’s specifically look at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two privately owned but government-created housing finance institutions (also known as government-sponsored enterprises, or GSEs). Fannie and Freddie received giant bailouts during the crisis, but they weren’t shut down. Instead, they have continued to operate, continued to benefit from implicit government subsidies, and continued to dominate housing finance because of their government-protected status.

Under the conditions of the bailouts, however, the excess cash generated by this government-subsidized duopoly have gone to the Treasury rather than to shareholders (incidentally, I wrote “excess cash” rather than “profit” because I think of the latter as money that is fairly earned in a competitive marketplace, whereas the earnings of the GSE’s are the result of an artificial, subsidized, and protected system).

In any event, the bailout will have been repaid at some point in the near future, so the government has to decide the next step. Should Fannie and Freddie be allowed to simply go back to their old model?

As you might expect, Cato’s expert on the issue, Mark Calabria, has a lot to say about the issue. In a column co-authored with Alex Pollock of the American Enterprise Institute, he proposes a set of reforms.

Nobody wants the old Fannie and Freddie back; nobody wants them to stay on indefinitely in conservatorship. What is required are practical steps forward.

Mark and Alex identify specific requirements that should be met before allowing Fannie and Freddie off the leash, starting with basic capital requirements and other reforms so the GSEs are less likely to create instability and excessive risk.

Take away Fannie and Freddie’s capital arbitrage and set their equity capital requirements in line with other financial institutions of similar size. Equity of at least 5 percent of total assets should be their required leverage capital ratio. …Given their undiversified business, something more might be prudent. In any case, the hyper-leverage which allowed Fannie and Freddie to put the whole financial system at risk needs to be permanently ended. …Designate them as the Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs) they indubitably are. Fannie and Freddie…have conclusively demonstrated their ability to generate huge systemic risk.

They also say Fannie and Freddie should no longer have special privileges. If these GSEs want to act like private companies, the should be subjected to all the laws and rules that apply to private companies.

End all their securities law exemptions. …End all their preferences in banking law and regulation. …End their exemption from state and local income taxes. …End all their exemptions from consumer protection rules. …Open up their charters to competition just like banking charters.

In a column for the Wall Street Journal, the former heads of the FDIC and Wells Fargo, William Isaac and Richard Kovacevich, point out that President-Elect Trump wants to do the right thing and shrink the risky role of government.

…the president-elect want[s] to privatize the home-mortgage market and “will get it done reasonably fast.” That’s good news for American homeowners, the economy and taxpayers who were forced to foot the bill after the 2008 subprime mortgage meltdown. …this is not a radical proposal. The private sector provides mortgages in most major countries, and there is little difference in the share of homeownership between the U.S. and other developed countries. No other country has the equivalent of the private-public model of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—crony capitalism at its best.

Isaac and Kovacevich explain why the old approach is unacceptable.

…many politicians and industry participants believe that housing cannot prosper without government support. We disagree. The U.S. cannot afford to go through another financial crisis, which started with subprime mortgages and would never have been so large if the residential mortgage industry had been market-based. Subprime mortgages have existed for decades. But they were a small percentage of the mortgage market until Fannie and Freddie reduced credit standards to increase their market share and meet low-income homeownership targets mandated by Congress. By 2007 nearly 50% of mortgages originated in the U.S. were subprime and “alt-A” types with government agencies guaranteeing about 70% of those… Without these government guarantees, the subprime bubble and financial crisis would have never happened. Bank regulators and industry experts warned Congress for decades about Fannie and Freddie and their increasingly large and risky portfolios, but Congress failed to act.

They then point out how we can move to a system based instead on market, and that any subsidies and handouts should be limited and transparent.

The solution is straightforward: The public-private hybrid of Fannie and Freddie—“government-sponsored entities”—should be abolished, their existing business sold or liquidated, and the mortgage market privatized. …The current $686,000 cap on new mortgages guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie should be reduced by $100,000 a year. This would put the companies out of originating new mortgages within seven years. …if the government still wants to subsidize mortgages for low-income families and minorities, the cost should be on budget and transparent. The Federal Housing Administration already does this.

By the way, a private system wouldn’t mean an end to conventional mortgages.

Others speculate that, without Fannie and Freddie, mortgage rates would skyrocket and the 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage would vanish. We disagree. Nonconventional or “jumbo” 30-year mortgages not guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie have existed for decades. In the decade preceding the financial crisis, the interest rate on these jumbo mortgages averaged only about 0.25% higher than similar guaranteed mortgages, a difference of a little over $40 a month on a $200,000 mortgage. Shouldn’t Americans, like homeowners throughout the world, pay a tax-deductible $40 extra a month so taxpayers aren’t on the hook for hundreds of billions to bail out Fannie and Freddie?

Amen. Fannie and Freddie never should have been created in the first place.

And today, with the memory of their disastrous impact still fresh in our minds, we should do everything possible to shut down these corrupt GSEs. I’ve argued for this position over and over and over again.

Sadly (but not surprisingly), there are many people who want to move policy in the wrong direction. The Obama Administration has pushed for more risky housing handouts, often aided and abetted by Republicans who care more about pleasing lobbyists rather than protecting taxpayers.

And it goes without saying that Fannie and Freddie are proposing more handouts in order to create a bigger constituency that will advocate for their preservation.

Kevin Williamson of National Review looks at a crazy idea to create more risk from Fannie Mae.

…government-sponsored mortgage giant Fannie Mae roll[ed] out a daft new mortgage proposal that would allow borrowers without enough income to qualify for a mortgage to count income that isn’t theirs on their mortgage application. …Claiming that the money you are using for a down payment is yours when it has been lent to you by a family member or a friend was a crime… Fannie Mae, the organized-crime syndicate masquerading as a quasi-governmental entity, has other ideas. Under its new and cynically misnamed “HomeReady” program, borrowers with subprime credit don’t need to show that they have enough income to qualify for the mortgage they’re after — they simply have to show that all the people residing in their household put together have enough income to qualify for that mortgage. We’re not talking just about husbands and wives here, but any group of people who happen to share a roof and a mailing address. …That would be one thing if all these people were applying for a mortgage together, and were jointly on the hook for the mortgage payments. But that isn’t the case. HomeReady will permit borrowers to claim other people’s income for the purpose for qualifying for a mortgage, but will not give mortgage lenders any actual claim against that additional income. This is madness.

Madness is certainly an accurate description. If you want to be more circumspect, economic illiteracy is another option.

The bottom line is that government-subsidized risk is not a good idea.

And also keep in mind that shutting down Fannie and Freddie is just part of the solution. So long as deposit insurance exists, we’re going to have some instability in the financial system. And so long as government wants to subsidize housing for people with poor credit, taxpayers will be on the hook for losses. And so long as there are biases in the tax code for debt over equity and residential real estate over business investment, the economy won’t grow as fast.

With the bailout being repaid in the

Elections

Hillary Clinton addresses the Children's Defense Fund's Beat the Odds celebration at the Newseum in Washington, Nov. 16, 2016. (AP Photo)

Hillary Clinton addresses the Children’s Defense Fund’s Beat the Odds celebration at the Newseum in Washington, Nov. 16, 2016. (AP Photo)

When political scientists and psephologists look back at presidential elections, news events are not thought to be a typical determining factor in the outcome. Election 2016 is not and will not be any different if Big Data is used as the standard in future analysis.

President-elect Donald J. Trump defeated Hillary Clinton because of the fundamentals of the race, not because of any items on the growing list of ‘Why Clinton Lost’ excuses. Obviously, Big Media would disagree.

The Clinton-friendly mainstream media–who have been on a non-stop emotional pendulum since November 8, swinging back-and-forth from disbelief to anger–have parroted one excuse after another.

Almost immediately after her defeat to President-elect Trump, Mrs. Clinton and her campaign began to assign blame to everyone except the former secretary of state and her consultants. First, during a call with top donors and supporters, Mrs. Clinton herself blamed FBI Director James Comey, President Barack Obama and sexism. She regurgitated one excuse after another outlined in an internal post-mortem letter by Navin Nayak, the head of opinion research at the Clinton campaign.

Mr. Nayak cited now-debunked data from exit polls and pre-election media polling to argue that there “is no question that a week from Election Day, Sec. Clinton was poised for a historic win.”

She coupled Director Comey’s letter with the “unprecedented task of electing the first woman to the highest office in the land (code for sexism)” to explain the loss.

“We believe that we lost this election in the last week. Comey’s letter in the last 11 days of the election both helped depress our turnout and also drove away some of our critical support among college-educated white voters—particularly in the suburbs,” she stated in the letter. “We also think Comey’s 2nd letter, which was intended to absolve Sec. Clinton, actually helped to bolster Trump’s turnout.”

The now-embarrassed leftwing election forecaster Nate Silver has even helped to perpetuate the erroneous claim that Mrs. Clinton would be president-elect if not for Director Comey. But it was more an attempt to justify his incompetence than it was an attempt to explain what really happened before November 8. Seeing as how he couldn’t make sense of what happened before November 8, I’m not at all surprised by his recent tweet.

Perhaps Mr. Silver, whom I told you was a glorified poll reader, should’ve waited to hear a few more talking points before settling on Director Comey. The Clinton campaign even blamed “Global forces” for “driving deep-seated anger at institutions,” rather than the economic impact of globalization or the actions of these unnamed institutions.

Now, they are blaming Russia. After a few weeks of intentionally and falsely insinuating voting totals were changed, they’ve settled on influencing the election by hacking and revealing communications only from Democratic sources.

The truth is that Big Data simply won’t support these false assertions. If we want to scrutinize the accuracy of these insane excuses, then it only makes sense to reference the results of the outlet that put forward the most accurate data. While the outcome of the presidential election was a shock to most of the political and media establishments–not to mention those who hang on their every word–it wasn’t to our readers.

The People’s Pundit Daily (PPD) U.S. Presidential Election Daily Tracking Poll and PPD Battleground State Polls were the most accurate surveys in 2016, and it wasn’t even close. So, let’s get down to it.

President-elect Trump didn’t break Ronald Reagan’s 1984 record among working class voters and flip blue states in the Rust Belt because of WikiLeaks. He did it against all odds and the world because he was their voice against an elitist class whom Mrs. Clinton embodied.

We did see significant movement to Mr. Trump in certain battleground states in the closing days, but support for him actually declined for several days after Wikileaks began to dump Clinton campaign chair John Podesta’s emails. The reality is that President-elect Trump was ahead of Mrs. Clinton more than he was behind in our national and battleground state tracking polls, with her largest leads springing up during periods where he was down–i.e. the Access Hollywood tape.

On October 23, the day Silver says would’ve meant a win for Mrs. Clinton, she trailed Mr. Trump by a little less than a point. On October 24, she began to take a slight less than 1-point lead over Mr. Trump due solely to a temporary increase in voter enthusiasm, not a significant increase in support among mind-changers.

The fact late-deciders broke for Mr. Trump hard over Mrs. Clinton is not evidence of damage done by the director’s letter, but rather the result of simple consolidation by a candidate recently passing the presidential bar. I’ve long told readers and interviewers that Mrs. Clinton had more structural and fundamental deficits baked in the electoral cake from the beginning. He had two main challenges to meet in order to win and, much to the dismay of his detractors, he met them.

Passing the Presidential Bar

The movement toward then-GOP nominee Trump really began following the third debate on October 19 in Las Vegas, which was more pronounced in the battleground states than on the national level. He had lost much of his lead following the release of the Access Hollywood tape and voters unhappy with the alternatives were still willing to give him a chance to pass the bar. Despite the incessant clamoring in the media about his comment regarding whether he would accept the elect results or not, they believed he passed that bar during what was his second strong performance.

Building a Working Class Coalition & Holding the Suburban Vote

The PPD U.S. Presidential Election Daily Tracking Poll did find Mr. Trump with a deficit among suburban white women, particularly those with a college-degree. It just wasn’t nearly as severe as Big Media pollsters suggested. Mr. Trump’s challenge, which I repeated on PPD and during interviews more times than I can remember, was always whether he could hold on to GOP and GOP-leaning suburban voters while adding a new working class coalition.

In the end, he did and that’s what ultimately decided both the outcome of the election and Mrs. Clinton’s fate.

Democrats certainly didn’t help themselves by nominating a flawed, untrustworthy candidate under two criminal FBI probes. But for the most part, voters make rational policy choices at the ballot box and Mr. Trump’s populist platform appealed to voters–both minority and white –who are typically counted among ranks of the Democratic Party’s base. His appeal was attitudinal, not ideological and that’s how and why he broke the Blue Wall.

The entire ruling political class, Wall Street and their corrupted media sycophants couldn’t drag Mrs. Clinton over the finish line because she didn’t have a message to working class Americans. Just for fun and games we put up a piece entitled, Two Lines That Won Donald J. Trump the Presidency.

It was meant to be fun, but not a joke. The two lines were “I am your voice” and “drain the swamp.” It’s worth noting that “global forces” as it relates to the powerful status quo were working against President-elect Trump. Even if Russia was the source of the WikiLeaks revelations and did so to help President-elect Trump, they were the only ones acting on his behalf. That’s very much how the “forgotten” working men and women felt this election, and have for quite some time. No one spoke for them, that is, until President-elect Trump.

Democrats and mediates were in such a state of shock on election night because they really believed they had the numbers. After decades of using immigration and government dependency to change the nature of the American electorate, they felt they could ignore and shame everyday Americans in Middle America. With each new and recycled excuse, Big Media and Democrats are demonstrating that they still have not heard them.

The most accurate statewide and national Big

Politics

Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., questions Mylan CEO Heather Bresch on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2016, as she testifies before the House Oversight Committee hearing on EpiPen price increases. Bresch defended the cost for life-saving EpiPens, signaling the company has no plans to lower prices despite a public outcry and questions from skeptical lawmakers. (Photo: AP)

Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., questions Mylan CEO Heather Bresch on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2016, as she testifies before the House Oversight Committee hearing on EpiPen price increases. Bresch defended the cost for life-saving EpiPens, signaling the company has no plans to lower prices despite a public outcry and questions from skeptical lawmakers. (Photo: AP)

(New York, NY) —  President-elect Donald J. Trump Saturday nominated Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., for Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Rep. Mulvaney has a reputation in Congress for being a budget hawk, co-authoring the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act, which aimed to slow the growth of current spending and cap future spending in the federal budget.

“We are going to do great things for the American people with Mick Mulvaney leading the Office of Management and Budget,” said President-elect Trump. “Right now we are nearly $20 trillion in debt, but Mick is a very high-energy leader with deep convictions for how to responsibly manage our nation’s finances and save our country from drowning in red ink. With Mick at the head of OMB, my administration is going to make smart choices about America’s budget, bring new accountability to our federal government, and renew the American taxpayer’s trust in how their money is spent.”

Rep. Mulvaney, a Honor Scholar graduate of the Georgetown University, attended law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He went on to Harvard Business School and completed the OPM program in 2006. He began his own firm in South Carolina before running for public office.

“It is a great honor to be appointed Director of the Office of Management and Budget,” said Rep. Mulvaney. “The Trump administration will restore budgetary and fiscal sanity back in Washington after eight years of an out-of-control, tax and spend financial agenda, and will work with Congress to create policies that will be friendly to American workers and businesses. Each day, families across our nation make disciplined choices about how to spend their hard earned money, and the federal government should exercise the same discretion that hardworking Americans do every day.”

Rep. Mulvaney began his political career after he was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in 2006, becoming the first Republican ever to win that seat in his district. He currently serves on the House Financial Services Committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The Club for Growth, a fiscally conservative free market advocacy group that spent millions of dollars opposing President-elect Trump during the Republican nomination, is praising the selection as a “major victory for tax payers.”

“The days of the White House producing massive, ridiculous budgets that are dead on arrival on Capitol Hill are over,” said Club for Growth president David McIntosh. “Mick Mulvaney is a leader among economic conservatives, and the Trump Administration’s selection is a major victory for taxpayers and for all who want to see the downsizing of the federal government.”

The Club releases annual scores for lawmakers on fiscal sanity and economic freedom. Since Mr. Mulvaney was first elected in 2010, he has never scored less than 93% on the Club for Growth’s annual scorecard and has a lifetime average of 96. It’s earned him the support of the constituents in his district. He won re-election to secure a third term by defeating Democrat Tom Adams, a Fort Mill Town Council member, by a whopping 59%–41%.

“He has walked the talk of economic conservatism, and will bring that same steadfastness to the White House,” Mr. McIntosh said.

President-elect Donald J. Trump Saturday nominated spending hawk

Opinion

The good thing about being a libertarian (above and beyond respecting the rights and liberties of other people) is that you can always say “I told you so” when government intervention leads to bad results. Obamacare is a very good (albeit very painful) example.

The bad thing about being a libertarian is that you don’t win many victories. No matter how much evidence is on your side, politicians usually do the wrong thing. Not because they are necessarily evil. They’re simply responding to “public choice” incentives.

Indeed, the only big victory that I’ve had in recent years was the sequester. And even that victory has been tarnished by the 2013and 2015 deals that weakened the caps on discretionary outlays.

So I’m delighted to report that Brazil has actually amended its constitution to impose a spending cap. I was somewhat hopeful that this might happen when I wrote about the issue back in October, but never allowed myself to think it would actually happen.

The Wall Street Journal reports on this remarkable development.

Brazil’s Senate approved a measure capping public spending, delivering a victory to embattled President Michel Temer, who is struggling to close a massive budget deficit and revive the nation’s moribund economy. In an unusually rapid session with little discussion, lawmakers on Tuesday voted 53 to 16 to approve a constitutional amendment limiting the country’s annual spending growth to the previous year’s inflation rate. The move was a drastic shot of discipline for Brazil’s government, whose public debt and deficits have expanded at rates so worrisome that three major credit agencies have downgraded the nation’s credit rating to junk status. Several economists and analysts praised the constitutionally enforced limits as the only way for Brazil’s government to live within its means and restore investor confidence.

It’s remarkable that Brazil’s politicians were willing to tie their own hands, but they presumably had no choice because the nation’s finances deteriorated to the point that drastic measures were necessary.

The spending cap applies to the federal budget starting in 2017, except for education and health costs, which will be subject to the limits starting in 2018. It was the centerpiece of austerity measures proposed by Mr. Temer to shore up Brazil’s shaky public finances. Brazil’s budget deficit was a hefty 8.3% of gross domestic product in October, after growing almost steadily from 1.8% of GDP in July 2011. Gross debt was 70.3% of GDP in October, up from its more recent low of 51% of GDP in December 2012.

As you might expect, there was opposition.

..the measure drew the ire of opposition politicians, labor unions and citizens concerned that spending limits could harm Brazil’s troubled health-care and education systems.

So it is impressive that the this constitutional reform received supermajority support for two votes in the Brazilian House, followed by supermajority support for two votes in the Brazilian Senate.

I would like to think I played at least a tiny role in this development. I’ve crunched numbers showing that nations get very good results when spending is restrained for multi-year periods.

I’ve written extensively on the successful spending caps in Switzerland and Hong Kong, both of which are part of those nations’ constitutions.

And I’ve highlighted the fact that international bureaucracies, when they investigate the efficacy of various fiscal rules, always conclude that spending caps are the only effective approach.

I also wrote an article for the Brazilian media back in October.

But even if I had no impact on the debate, I’m still very happy about the outcome.

Assuming, of course, that Brazil doesn’t have a Supreme Court Justice like John Roberts who will somehow make a politicized decision and sabotage the new spending cap!

P.S. I seem to have more success overseas than in the United States. I did help defeat the income tax in the Cayman Islands a few years ago, and I also hope that my recent trip to Vanuatu will lead to a similar outcome.

But since I’m a patriot (in the proper sense) who wants the United States to be a beacon of liberty for the world, it sure would be nice to win a few battles here at home.

P.P.S. Brazil may be on the cusp of other pro-market reforms, in part because of a vibrant libertarian movement in the country.

Here’s a video from Reason on this positive development.

Jeff Tucker of the Foundation for Economic Education has a very upbeat assessment.

I went on a three-city speaking tour in Brazil. …I found an amazingly well-educated crowd of students, young professionals, professors, media personalities, and digital activists, all dedicated to using the upheaval to the advantage of freedom itself. Organizations like Mises Brazil, and many others that have spun off from Students for Liberty and other organizations, have spent years translating and distributing books and articles, holding seminars, and cultivating young people for a life of activism. …The libertarians in Brazil seem to understand that ideological slogans and promises for change mean nothing so long as states are huge, invasive, and offer a bounty to anyone who gains power.

Let’s hope this is right and Brazil becomes a star reformer. Chile (and, in recent years, Peru) have been lonely outposts of good policy in South America.

Brazil has actually amended its constitution to

Opinion

FILE - In this Oct. 20, 2015 file photo, Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, shakes hand with Syrian President Bashar Assad as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, right, looks on, at the Kremlin, in Moscow, Russia. For five years fighting has raged in Syria -- a globally resonant nightmare kept going in part by the insistence of Bashar Assad’s opponents that he must go even though they were failing to dislodge him from power. Now an inflection point may finally be at hand, with increasingly important Turkey suggesting Assad could play a role in an unspecified transition period. (Photo: Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

FILE – In this Oct. 20, 2015 file photo, Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, shakes hand with Syrian President Bashar Assad as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, right, looks on, at the Kremlin, in Moscow, Russia. For five years fighting has raged in Syria — a globally resonant nightmare kept going in part by the insistence of Bashar Assad’s opponents that he must go even though they were failing to dislodge him from power. Now an inflection point may finally be at hand, with increasingly important Turkey suggesting Assad could play a role in an unspecified transition period. (Photo: Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

Several years ago, an airliner crashed in Russia because of pilot error, killing scores of people on board. At the crash site, a Western aid worker asked one of the government officials at the scene how something like this could happen. The response: “This is Russia.”

Human life in Russia is an uncertain proposition, which everyone knows could end early and unexpectedly. There is a pervasive fatalism, a belief that the end is coming and it won’t be good, so enjoy things while you can. This has permeated Russian culture for centuries. From Ivan the Terrible killing his own son to the executions of the Romanovs and the aristocracy by the Bolsheviks, Russians have believed a single human life is worth much less than the success of the state.

A friend in Moscow recently told me that Russians look down on the commercial movies of the West where the superhero saves the day. I asked what is a good Russian movie. “In the end, the worst thing happens and everybody dies. This is life,” I was told.

You could see this fatalism even on a trip to Moscow or St. Petersburg in the go-go 2000s. Russians were spending their newfound oil wealth as fast as they could: traveling, eating expensive meals and buying luxury cars. It was as if they knew the good times would not last and they had to spend their rubles before they were taken away.

During “The Great Patriotic War,” as the Russians call it, if the Nazi lines stood firm and Russian troops retreated, they frequently would be shot as they returned to friendly lines. This tended to sharpen the courage to take on the enemy, no matter the odds. Russian artillery units bombed their own villages as the enemy advanced so the Nazis would not enjoy the spoils of their victory. Stalin famously starved 20 million Ukrainians, who sat in the breadbasket of Europe, so he could feed the Soviet workers in the cities.

Flash forward to 2016, and ask Muscovites how they feel about Russian soldiers dying in Syria. The typical response goes something like this: “They took the job to earn more money than we can here in Moscow, so they can die. I have no sympathy for them.”

Human life is not sacrosanct in Russia. The culture does not wail and gnash its teeth over civilian deaths, if those deaths advance the needs of Mother Russia.

Russia has adopted the same attitude in Syria. Civilian deaths do not matter and may in fact aid the cause by hastening the ultimate Russian and Syrian victory. Western elites have forgotten what victory means. Secretary of State John Kerry famously chastised Russian President Vladimir Putin when he annexed Crimea by saying modern nations shouldn’t act as if it were the 19th century. Mr. Kerry was also famously wrong.

Russians don’t value some nebulous, high-minded globalist agenda. They value victory, whatever the cost. Civilian deaths do not matter, especially if they are on the adversary’s side. No amount of hand-wringing and preaching from the White House press room will change that.

I’ve often wondered where this attitude comes from and how it was integrated so thoroughly into Russian culture. I think a lot has to do with centuries of living under the control of the Mongolian hordes from the East, always paying tribute to the local warlord. It comes from centuries of conquest and survival, an attitude you can still see in eastern Ukraine.

Russia never experienced the Enlightenment. The society developed away from the intellectual currents that came to dominate the capitals of Europe, followed its own track, and was sheltered from the ideas and values that helped create the European Union.

But as the EU implodes in a spasm of nationalist fury, it raises the question of who actually has the more successful model for the long-term survival of a nation.

In any event, don’t look for the Russians to hold back in Syria. They will bomb hospitals, schools and civilian enclaves if they need to. Combined with President Obama’s incompetent machinations in the Middle East, that approach has proved to be the road to victory in Aleppo and elsewhere in the region.

Copyright © 2016 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

[mybooktable book=”motherland” display=”summary” buybutton_shadowbox=”true”]

Human life in Russia is an uncertain

Politics

A journalist writes a material as she watches a live telecast of the U.S. presidential election standing at portraits of U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Union Jack pub in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016. Russia's lower house of parliament is applauding the election of Trump as U.S. president. (Photo: AP)

A journalist writes a material as she watches a live telecast of the U.S. presidential election standing at portraits of U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Union Jack pub in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016. Russia’s lower house of parliament is applauding the election of Trump as U.S. president. (Photo: AP)

FBI Director James Comey and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper agree with the CIA claim that Russia interfered with the U.S. election, according to Reuters and The Washington Post. Further, the agency heads now allegedly agree the hacking of Democratic organizations, including the Democratic National Committee, was aimed at helping President-elect Donald J. Trump defeat Hillary Clinton.

The reports, which represent a reversal of positions taken by both Comey and Clapper only days ago, come a day after President Barack Obama vowed to respond and take action against Russia. Mr. Obama allegedly knew about the hacking since mid-2015 but did nothing with the information he was supposedly given because he believed Mrs. Clinton would win on November 8.

If true, the next question would be whether the leaking in fact changed minds. With the exception of Fox News and independent online news outlets, the mainstream media largely ignored the revelations in WikiLeaks. The initial DNC leak before and during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia exposed several anchors and journalists were corrupt and colluding with the Democratic Party to push narratives and help Mrs. Clinton.

At CNN, which colluded with the Clinton campaign to help the former secretary of state to defeat both Sen. Bernie Sanders (here) and President-elect Trump (here), anchor Chris Cuomo actually told viewers that it was illegal to go to the WikiLeaks website and read the material.

He erroneously claimed American voters were only legally permitted to view or hear of the leaked information through CNN and other news outlets.

The Russian hacking plot, which initially insinuated voting machines were compromised and vote totals were changed, is the latest in a long and growing list of excuses for why Mrs. Clinton lost to President-elect Trump in an Electoral College landslide. In fact, one of the directors now allegedly in agreement with the CIA assessment, FBI Director Comey, was the first scapegoat for the loss.

Democrats, including an official post-mortem given to donors on a conference call by the Clinton campaign, claimed Director Comey’s decision to reopen and then close the email investigation cost Mrs. Clinton the election. Racism and sexism followed, preceding the unsubstantiated charge that voting machines “could” have been hacked. The recounts that were initiated by Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein not only turned up more votes for President-elect Trump in 2 of the 3 states but also uncovered massive voter fraud in the Democratic stronghold of Wayne County in Michigan.

“The aggregate data just don’t support the myriad ‘Why Clinton Lost’ excuses,” said PPD Editor and Polling Director Richard Baris. “For starters, support for Donald Trump fell for several days following the Wikileaks dump of John Podesta’s emails. The reality is that President-elect Trump was ahead of Mrs. Clinton more than he was behind in our national and battleground state tracking polls.”

While the result of the presidential election was a shock to most of the political and media establishments–not to mention those who hang on their every word–it wasn’t to our readers. The People’s Pundit Daily (PPD) U.S. Presidential Election Daily Tracking Poll and PPD Battleground State Polls were the most accurate surveys in 2016, and it wasn’t even close.

The final PPD Keystone State Battleground Poll released on November 6 found Donald Trump taking 48.4% of the vote to Hillary Clinton’s 47.8%, a statistical tie that nearly nailed the vote exactly.

The final results: Mr. Trump got 48.8% of the vote to 47.6% for Mrs. Clinton. It doesn’t get much closer than that, particularly in a state Republican presidential candidates have failed to carry for roughly 3 decades. In Florida, where we are based, the final PPD Sunshine State Battleground Poll found Mr. Trump leading by 2 points. He won by about 1.4%.

In Michigan and Wisconsin, the final PPD Battleground State Polls found the two candidates tied but leaning to the Republican nominee by less than 0.5%. In Colorado, the final PPD Rocky Mountain Battleground State Poll found Mrs. Clinton leading Mr. Trump by 3 points, 48% to 45%. She won by 3 points, 47% to 44%. The final PPD Tar Heel State Battleground Poll found Mr. Trump leading by 3 points, 49% to 46%. He won by 4 points, 51% to 47%.

“The entire political class, Wall Street and their corrupt media sycophants couldn’t drag Mrs. Clinton over the finish line because she didn’t have a message to working class Americans,” Baris said. “President-elect Trump didn’t break Ronald Reagan’s 1984 record among working class voters and flip blue states in the Rust Belt because of WikiLeaks. He did it against all odds and the world because he was their voice against an elitist class embodied by Mrs. Clinton.”

“End of story.”

In truth, Russia and other nation-states, most being major regional powers, have attempted and succeeded to influence U.S. elections in the past. In 2008, the Chinese government intervened with an aim to help then-Sen. Barack Obama defeat Sen. John McCain.

Reports claim FBI Director James Comey and

People's Pundit Daily
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