Headlines

Democrats build big edge in early voting

Just 14% of workers trust their CEOs as they return to the workplace

Five alleged 9/11 co-conspirators could go on trial next year after countless delays

 Poll: Likely voters disapprove of BLM protests

‘We’ll put them down very quickly’: Trump threatens to quash election night riots

Fraternities blamed for campus coronavirus outbreaks as universities struggle to resume classes

Trump won’t give more time for TikTok owner to find buyer for U.S. operations

Biden admits ‘USMCA better than NAFTA’

NIH director: ‘I’m pretty puzzled and rather disheartened’ by Trump rallies

Dr. Scott Gottlieb blames early virus testing failures for making March lockdown the only choice

Iran runs online disinformation campaign to boost Biden

Salvani physically attacked by leftist migrant in Tuscany


STAND UP FOR AMERICA!

Headlines

All from Internet news sites. Guess which from Politico?

Pelosi, Booker push for removal of Capitol's Confederate statues

Democratic [State] Senator: 'I hope Trump is assassinated'

Van plows into [Barcelona] crowd: 13 dead, 100+ injured

Report: Ex-DWS aide Imran Awan indicted on 4 counts

CEOs to move White House talks underground

Trump voters still support him despite Charlottesville remarks

Gary Cohn resignation would 'crash markets'

Iran: We can restart nuclear program within hours

Corker: Trump has yet to show stability, competence

Liberals mad that Bannon is friendly with top Trudeau advisors

Secret Chnese military activity in Antarctica ...

Impeachment articles proposed against Trump for Charlottesville remarks

Headlines

All from Internet news sites. Guess which from Politico?

Spanish police kill 5 attackers wearing fake suicide belts

Rahm Emanuel rehabs his national profile

Bannon says he hopes Democrats talk about racism every day

Feds refuse to remove memorials ..

Trump stress has business booming for shrinks

Trump dumps CEOs before more could abandon him

College cancels free speech event, cites campus safety concerns

Philippine police kill 32 in 'shock and awe' drug raids ...

Ann Coulter: 'When liberals club people, it's with love in their hearts'

U.S. sets tough tone with Canada, Mexico as NAFTA talks begin

Bannon dismisses white supremacists as a 'collection of clowns'

Brooklyn army base urged to rename streets honoring generals

Defector: Christianity thrives in N Korea, citizens 'no longer respect' Kim

Tend to Your Knitting

"The business of America is business" -- Calvin Coolidge

Just like movie actors, who might have played in a film involving icebergs, feel that they can testify to Congress about global warming ... business executives too often assume that they can make pronouncements on public policy that play to their customer base. Bad idea! This is because, on political issues, their customers are not a monolith.

Yesterday, President Trump was forced to dissolve his Manufacturing Council since many of its members were resigning in objection to his press conference comments on the Charlottesville riots. Yes, the media narrative is that Trump was drawing a moral equivalence between the alt-left and the alt-right which disrespected the loss of  Heather Heyer's life at the hands of a deranged neo-Nazi.

However, not all Americans think that the demonstrators from ANTIFAs, Black Lives Matter, etc. were guiltless, yet still believe that white nationalism is also evil. The CEOs of Merck, Intel and Under Armour first resigned from the president's council saying, in essence, that the president's remarks were an endorsement of the KKK and neo-Nazis. However, these and other outspoken CEOs may not understand that, in a like leap of illogic, their actions may appear to many of their customers as an endorsement of ANTIFA and Black Lives Matter.

The executives of American businesses should learn to tend to their knitting and not take public sides on partisan political issues. They can certainly have private opinions but they should keep them private. It can never help things to grandstand on such issues ... except possibly to massage their own egos. Yes, when required, stand up publicly for morality ... but only in crystal-clear cases ... not those in which a biased media may say are crystal clear.

Afterward: A case in point: Apple Funds Left-Wing Hate Group.

Funny Numbers

The federal government is quite punishing to corporations which report inflated figures to their stockholders. In fact, ever since the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, CEOs and CFOs must personally sign off on their financial statements under the penalties of personal prosecution. But not so the federal government. Our White House hosers feel that they can manufacture any numbers that suit their political purposes. The most recent example is the inflation of the Obamacare sign-up numbers last Spring by 1.3 million out of 8 million reported ... see: Breitbart Article. This is a 16.2% inflation of this figure ... or a "material" misstatement in corporate terms ... one that might well end the responsible executive in the hoosegow.

And this is not the first time that the Obama administration has used funny numbers to serve their political purposes. Remember how there was a convenient reduction in the unemployment rate right before the 2012 presidential election? See: My Tinfoil Hat. This, in my opinion, was due to the politicizing of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This slight-of-hand has oft been repeated when Obama brags about the number of new jobs he has created ... see: Weasel Words. And, as a consequence, I have become suspicious of most of the numbers that our current government publishes ... deficits, Federal Reserve balance sheet numbers (see: Finger on the Scale), and maybe even macro-economic measures may have been compromised.

I wonder how old our president really is?