Is anyone surprised at how the mainstream media, which was colluding with Hillary Clinton against both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, has so quickly turned on the president-elect?
Maybe it isn't that big a surprise...
Politico:
Donald Trump’s leading candidate for secretary of state, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, would accelerate the president-elect's collision course with Congress over his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and raise new questions about Putin’s role in the election.Because we don't want to have a friendly relationship with one of the world's superpower countries, right?
Tillerson, whom Trump officials now call the front-runner for America’s top diplomatic job, has spent hours with Putin negotiating billions of dollars in Russian oil projects, and is believed to be on friendlier terms with the Russian autocrat than all but a handful of Americans. He has also been critical of U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia since 2014.
Am I the only one who remembers how the media blasted Bush's reckless foreign policy? Or how they shilled for Obama's phony Iran deal? Now, a president actually wants to work on having a relationship with Russia, and the MSM is all aghast.
But it gets better:
Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham are likely to mount aggressive opposition to Tillerson, according to sources familiar with their thinking.When you see the mainstream media roll out McCain and Graham, watch out! Those two are the worst RINO's around, and get frequently used by the media to support the MSM's wrong-headed ideals.
I will have more about Russia and Trump later, because that seems to be the new theme in the media.
However, don't misread Trump as some kind of foreign policy wiz...
CNN:
President-elect Donald Trump again signaled Sunday a willingness to confront Beijing, questioning whether the United States should keep its long-standing position that Taiwan is part of "one China."America's policy of Chinese appeasement hasn't been a booming success, unless you are Chinese.
"I fully understand the 'one China' policy, but I don't know why we have to be bound by a 'one China' policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade," Trump said on "Fox News Sunday."
Trump had set off a diplomatic controversy when he took a call from Taiwan's leader. The United States recognizes Taiwan as part of China -- and Chinese officials were furious over the first conversation in decades between a Taiwanese leader and a US President or President-elect.
But Trump does get one thing sort of right:
Trump indicated Sunday he won't hesitate to anger China until the country comes to the bargaining table on trade and severs ties with North Korea.One thing that doesn't make sense is why China would sit idly by while their North Korean puppet state develops nukes. China should be more involved in North Korea, even to the point of taking it over. The North Koreans would probably be happier under Chinese rule. However, China is probably holding out for a united Korea that is friendly to China. In China's defense, their leaders are long-term thinkers, unlike most Western leaders.
"I mean, look, we're being hurt very badly by China with devaluation, with taxing us heavy at the borders when we don't tax them, with building a massive fortress in the middle of the South China Sea, which they shouldn't be doing, and frankly with not helping us at all with North Korea," Trump said.
"You have North Korea. You have nuclear weapons, and China could solve that problem, and they're not helping us at all," Trump said.
While North Korea is a problem, Trump seems to be ignoring the bigger picture, which involves China and the world economy. Trump is playing a risky game here. If it pays off, I will fully admit he was right. For now, the risk seems to outweigh the potential benefit.
And yet more on Trump...
Palm Beach Post:
President-elect Donald Trump is driving a hard bargain for the foreign workers who will staff The Mar-a-Lago Club this winter.Last year's food was disappointing?
He’s paying some of them less than they made last year, and most get just a 1 percent raise.
As the presidential campaign heated up, Trump won approval to hire 64 foreign workers through the federal government’s H-2B visa program, according to newly released data from the U.S. Labor Department. Last year, Trump was allowed to hire 69 foreign workers at Mar-a-Lago.
While wage growth finally has begun to accelerate in the nation’s slow-to-recover job market — annual raises reached 2.5 percent for the 12 months ending in November — Trump is holding firm on pay.
The U.S. Department of Labor gave Trump permission to hire 19 cooks at $12.74 an hour, down from $13.01 an hour last year.
Mar-a-Lago also plans to hire 30 waiters and waitresses at $11.13 an hour (up from $10.99 an hour last year) and 15 housekeepers at $10.17 an hour, up from $10.07 an hour last year.It is curious why can't Trump hire Americans for these jobs?
Neither Trump’s transition team nor Mar-a-Lago’s manager responded to requests for comment. During a March presidential debate, Trump defended his hiring of foreign workers.Apparently, this isn't just a Trump thing. It is done by most wealthy employers.
“It’s very, very hard to get people,” Trump said. “Other hotels do the exact same thing.”
CareerSource Palm Beach County, a nonprofit job placement agency, says it knows plenty of American citizens willing to work at Mar-a-Lago.
“We have hundreds of qualified candidates and hundreds of job orders for various hospitality positions such as servers, chefs, cooks, bartenders, housekeeping, guest services, spa services, recreation, maintenance and more,” CareerSource spokesman Tom Veenstra said.
While Mar-a-Lago asks the federal government for dozens of H-2B visas every tourist season, the private club has asked CareerSource for help finding a local employee only once in the past decade, Veenstra said. That was a 2015 request for a single banquet server.
As of October, Palm Beach County’s labor market included 35,766 job seekers who were officially unemployed.
Boca West Country Club is Palm Beach County’s most prolific employer of foreign workers. It plans to hire 351 employees this season, at wages of $10.17 to $17.64. The Breakers in Palm Beach will hire 142 workers at wages of $9.61 to $12.74.
Why would wealthy employers prefer foreign labor over American labor? While the traditional excuse has been "there are some jobs that Americans won't do". That seems to require a small revision: "there are some jobs that Americans won't do WELL". Wealthy employers want high quality work done at low wages, and that isn't what the American job market offers.
That doesn't excuse Trump for being duplicitous. But it also begs the question of why the U.S. government supports this kind of behavior?
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