Jim Cramer March 2016: Trump has been right the whole way on the trade deals, he's always been pro-worker

Jim Cramer, here:

"I'm with Trump on this. Look, we lose on every trade deal. I ask all these people from either party: name me one trade deal we have had a surplus on in the last decade. They can't name any," Cramer said on "Squawk Box" on Thursday. ... "People should understand this has been his view from day one. It has always been pro-worker," said Cramer. "Have people not been paying attention to what this man has been saying about the trade deals? He's been right the whole way."

Mitch McConnell doesn't just look like a turtle, he moves like one, can't accomplish two important things at once

Time to get someone younger in there.

Carr Fire victims in California had no car, may not have known of evacuation order

The Sacramento Bee reports here:

Also believed to have died are a 70-year-old woman and her two great-grandchildren.

According to relative Donald Kewley, James Roberts, 4, and Emily Roberts, 5, went missing with their great grandmother, Melody Bledsoe, 70, Thursday night. Kewley told The Sacramento Bee that the three were last seen at their home near Keswick Dam Road and Quartz Hill Road – a home that was destroyed in the blaze – before evacuations were ordered.

Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko confirmed that three bodies were found inside the family home, but that no formal identification has been made yet.

“They are overwhelmingly sure that there are decedents at the scene,” the sheriff said. “And they have communicated that with family members. However, no bodies have been recovered. 

Separately reported here:

“There was no evacuation notice,” said Kewley, who lives about two miles away. “Our evacuation was a mile-wide column of smoke rotating toward us.”

Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko Saturday said evacuation notices had been given in multiple formats in the area, including reverse-911 robocalls, calls to cell phones of those who had signed up for such emergency alerts and notifications via TV and the federal Integrated Public Alert & Warning System, which broadcasts warnings during emergencies.

Bosenko could not say if authorities had gone door-to-door in the Bledsoes’ area, as they have in other evacuation sites.

He said Thursday night, as the fire unexpectedly and rapidly came into the city, streets were “bumper-to-bumper” with people trying to escape. At one point, Bosenko said, a civilian purposefully hit a sheriff’s vehicle trying to get through an intersection.

“It was very chaotic and people who had waited to the last minute were panicking,” Bosenko said.

In that frenzy of smoke and confusion, Melody, James and Emily sought help.

Federal Air Marshalls go from armed on-board cops to spying on US citizens under new Trump TSA "Quiet Skies" program

From The Boston Globe story here:

Quiet Skies represents a major departure for TSA. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the agency has traditionally placed armed air marshals on routes it considered potentially higher risk, or on flights with a passenger on a terrorist watch list. Deploying air marshals to gather intelligence on civilians not on a terrorist watch list is a new assignment, one that some air marshals say goes beyond the mandate of the US Federal Air Marshal Service. Some also worry that such domestic surveillance might be illegal. Between 2,000 and 3,000 men and women, so-called flying FAMs, work the skies.

Since this initiative launched in March, dozens of air marshals have raised concerns about the Quiet Skies program with senior officials and colleagues, sought legal counsel, and expressed misgivings about the surveillance program, according to interviews and documents reviewed by the Globe. ...

Agency documents show there are about 40 to 50 Quiet Skies passengers on domestic flights each day. On average, air marshals follow and surveil about 35 of them.

Trump needs to say he "will" shut down the government if he doesn't get The Wall

"Would be willing" is weasel words, Mr. President.

He also needs to say no one gets back pay this time.

If it's an economic boom why aren't inventories surging?

h/t Jeffrey Snider

The meat in your crab cake is likely picked by an H-2B visa holder, not by a Marylander

Neil Munro has an important story here about the House's efforts to expand H-2B visa caps.

The program already lowers salaries for Americans. Republicans want to see more of that, for some reason.

Apparently they think you are not paying attention this summer.

Islam silent as China continues persecution of up to 1 million Muslims in Xinjiang: Because they're on the payroll

Islamic Leaders Have Nothing to Say About China’s Internment Camps for Muslims:

Hundreds of thousands of Uighur have been detained without trial in China's western region of Xinjiang. Internment camps with up to a million prisoners. Empty neighborhoods. Students, musicians, athletes, and peaceful academics jailed. A massive high-tech surveillance state that monitors and judges every movement. The future of more than 10 million Uighurs, the members of China’s Turkic-speaking Muslim minority, is looking increasingly grim.

As the Chinese authorities continue a brutal crackdown in Xinjiang, the northwest region of China that’s home to the Uighur, Islam has been one of the main targets. Major mosques in the major cities of Kashgar and Urumqi now stand empty. Prisoners in the camps are told to renounce God and embrace the Chinese Communist Party. Prayers, religious education, and the Ramadan fast are increasingly restricted or banned. Even in the rest of China, Arabic text is being stripped from public buildings, and Islamophobia is being tacitly encouraged by party authorities. ...

Part of the answer is that money talks. 

The Republican corporate tax cuts Christmas 2017 have produced no surge in private investment in 2018 H1

Republican government spending in 2018 H1 easily beats out crisis spending under Obama 2009 H2 on a percentage basis

Yesterday Rush told us a crime was necessary to impeach Rosenstein, but today no crime's necessary to impeach Trump

Ah, high crimes and misdemeanors.

Once again, since misdemeanors are "minor wrongdoings", The Constitution cannot be made to say "high minor wrongdoings" in the sense of "severe", as in "severe minor wrongdoings", which would make no sense. "High" refers to where they occur, in federal office, not to their severity. Crimes are severe in and of themselves compared with misdemeanors, which by definition are not. Therefore, "crime" alone is not necessary for impeachment. A minor wrongdoing will do, committed in high office, that is, in the federal government.

Impeachment is the political remedy for both in the political context, i.e. in the federal government.

Once again, Rush is confused, and the House dropping impeachment of Rosenstein is probably a good thing, politically, because Trump could be impeached for almost nothing at all, as long as there is support for it. Best not to get everyone together on that by going after Rosenstein for a misdemeanor.

This is politics, people!

Here yesterday:

Anyway, Professor Dershowitz said this would be a very, very bad precedent because impeachment is always a remedy for criminal activity, criminal behavior. And it’s very risky here to go out and try to impeach Rosenstein simply ’cause he won’t turn things over to you. It’s kind of a tough case to make that Rosenstein’s behaving in a criminal fashion simply because he will not respond to subpoenas that the House leadership and Devin Nunes have demanded to see some documents.

But here today:

I mean, everything [Mueller has] come up with he’s given to some other jurisdiction to prosecute or do with what they will. And impeachment, you have to understand something about impeachment. This is what this has always been about. The effort here has always been to drive Trump’s approval numbers down. Impeachment is not a criminal proceeding.

It’s political. You can impeach a president if he hadn’t committed any crime. You can try it. High crimes, misdemeanors. They are hoping to drive Trump’s approvals numbers down with all of this.

The stock market closed lower after Trump's 4.1% GDP today, selling the news

Trump endorses John James for US Senate from Michigan

Trump endorses ‘star’ John James in Michigan Senate primary

Rush Limbaugh: Trump supporters don't think running around with Playboy playmates means anything compared with saving the culture

Incredible. What's to save, then? 

The basis of culture is the cult, that is, religion. Mine teaches that such behavior is wrong. I'll bet Melania's does, too.

If you want to make promiscuity the new cult, well, count me out.

Keep in mind that Rush Limbaugh is a drug addict and serial monogamist who has been wrong about far more than little old GDP in his lifetime. He was ecstatic to have that flaming homo Elton John sing at his third fourth wedding, so there you go. His Methodism is thimble deep, like his education.

Trump is nothing more than a transitional figure. Once the force of his personality is gone, nothing will be left . . . unless of course he builds that wall.

Here:

For example, Lowry says this incident on tape with Trump talking to a fixer about paying off a Playboy playmate would sink anybody, particularly any Republican candidate. Why doesn’t it sink Trump? Well, we’ve been through all the reasons for this. One of Lowry’s explanations is that the bar has been set so low with Trump that no new revelation is gonna shock anybody, not after the NBC Access Hollywood video. And so there just isn’t anything that’s gonna shock anybody. Trump’s already survived numerous such attempts to take him out.

So something like this, as far as Trump supporters are concerned, there’s nothing new here. No reason to get upset. But I think it’s far more than that. I think not enough credit’s being given to the sophistication of Trump supporters. And it is that it doesn’t mean anything, when compared to what these people think is really important, like saving the country, like growing the country, like saving our culture. Whether Trump’s running around with Playboy playmates is not relevant to them.

Rush Limbaugh is a GDP boob, again

Rush Limbaugh can't remember good GDP under Obama for two reasons.

One, he's never read the press releases from the BEA. These are available anytime of day or night, including right now, right on Al Gore's amazing internet, for the whole Obama era, but it's more convenient to ignore them at the time if they occasionally disagree with your broader political point.

Second, Limbaugh doesn't realize that real GDP is a moving target. Real means it's an inflation-adjusted figure, and therefore is constantly updated going back in time to incorporate inflation's effects. Therefore no report of GDP he remembers from the past is worth anything today, except in the context of its time.

Limbaugh also doesn't understand that while GDP is subject to constant revision from month to month for this and other reasons, today's report is the 15th comprehensive revision, which occurs every five years. The last one was in 2013. If you looked at the data before the 2013 revision and compared it after you'd see noteworthy differences in the numbers you may have remembered differently.

Comprehensive revisions incorporate new methodologies and measurements across all the data. Today's data revision does just that going back all the way to 1929. Limbaugh wants you to believe new methods and measures under Obama distorted Obama's numbers uniquely but weren't applied uniformly to all the data, which is a complete falsehood.

Here's the recent history of 4.0 real GDP or better from today's revisions vs. contemporaneous BEA press releases:

2Q2018: 4.1%

3Q2014: 4.9% (5% in third estimate Dec. 2014)

2Q2014: 5.1% (4.6% in third estimate Sept. 2014)

4Q2011: 4.7% (3.0% in third estimate March 2012)

4Q2009: 4.5% (5.6% in third estimate March 2010).

Trump's GDP in the first half of 2018 is comparable to Obama's and Bush's best performances before him. That's a hopeful sign. But Trump supporters like me will have something to really crow about if and when these numbers look like they did in the 1990s, and do it consistently.

So far, they don't.

The biggest disappointment in today's GDP report was the collapse of private investment

Compared with the average from 2007-2017, the points contributed to real GDP in 2Q2018 by private investment plunged 128%. It was the only category which actually subtracted from real GDP (-0.06 vs. an average contribution of +0.211 from 2007-2017, which includes the subtractions of the Great Recession era).

This was awful, but predicted by just about everybody. The tax cuts were supposed to deliver investment. Instead, they delivered consumption, an orgy of consumption, relatively speaking. The contribution from personal consumption was up 127% compared with the prior eleven year average, some part of which is fueled by borrowing. Total consumer credit outstanding in May hit a new record $3.897 trillion.

And speaking of fuel, the biggest gainer percentage-wise was net exports (oil), its contribution up a whopping 1414% over the previous period average. That's great for the oil business, but consumers are paying over three bucks a gallon for gasoline today. A lot of the personal consumption increase (above) is going straight into the fuel tank.

That's a neat trick of GDP. Export a commodity needed at home, driving up the price which consumers pay, and then the government turns around and counts consumers' misfortune as a sign of a growing economy! Yeah! Reelect the president!

Finally we have the contribution from government expenditures and investment, also up in a huge way, 1056% over the previous period average contributed (which includes all of Obama's stimulus). We needed the big increase to defense spending, to be sure, but that's for maintaining the possibility of increased standards of living. It's not the same thing as an increased standard of living.

Cue the happy talk. Surely it's five o'clock somewhere.

GDP hysteria

Earlier in the week the economic calendar at FXStreet had indicated a consensus estimate of GDP at 4% for 2Q2018. With less than an hour to go, that prediction has risen to 4.1%.

GDPNow at The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta gave it's final prediction of 3.8% yesterday.

Cheerleaders for Trump on talk radio have been crowing like roosters about a booming economy, pointing to the unemployment rate, and they hope to GDP.

GDP consists of four major components: personal consumption, private investment, net imports/exports, and government consumption and investment.

That last one can contribute significantly when there are big increases to government spending, such as just occurred with defense spending.

I expect to see that reflected in this morning's report, but it shouldn't be confused with an economic boom anymore than stimulus spending under Obama.

Government can pay people to dig a hole and other people to fill it back in again, but that is not an economic boom. Neither is a fireworks display.

The lunatics at the Cato Institute admit fiscal windfalls would come from legalizing heroin and cocaine, not marijuana

The Budgetary Effects of Ending Drug Prohibition:

"[A]lthough media outlets and policymakers mostly focus on marijuana, the majority of budgetary gains would likely come from legalizing heroin and cocaine."

There are even bigger windfalls from ending defense spending, until you're overrun by the enemy. 

Jessica Valenti: The snowflake/safe-space phenomenon is all the fault of feminism

And darn it, it just hasn't spread far enough.

The tantrum against intractable human nature continues.

Here:

One of feminism’s biggest successes was creating an alternative culture for girls and women seeking respite from mainstream constraints. Girls worried about unrealistic beauty standards, for example, can turn to the body positivity movement. Those of us who find traditional media’s treatment of women unappealing can read feminist blogs and magazines; female college students who have critical questions about how gender shapes their lives can take women’s studies classes.

From social media campaigns to after-school equality clubs, feminism has birthed dozens of online and real-life spaces where girls can find alternatives to the sexist status quo.

But boys and young men who are struggling have no equivalent culture.

Rick Santorum is suddenly doing robocalls for Sandy Pensler for US Senate here in Michigan, which sounds like desperation

Just got the call a few minutes ago.

Turns out the race is now deadlocked after some time with Pensler in the lead.

Pensler has been advertising vigorously in Rush Limbaugh's timeslot on the radio as well.

His opponent John James has been relying on direct mail to reach his voters.

Pensler is spending an awful lot of money to win when he went out of his way in January to alienate voters by stating for the record that the Polish people were complicit in the Holocaust in World War II.

That's hardly how to win friends and influence people in Macomb and Wayne counties if you really want to be elected to the US Senate in 2018! 

'The Polish legislature yesterday, with particularly insensitive timing, hammered home humanities [sic] dangerous proclivity to insulate ourselves against others. It passed legislation outlawing calling Polish based concentration camps such as Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzic and others as “Polish concentration camps” rather they must now be called . [sic] “Nazi concentration camps in occupied Poland”. This attempt to whitewash and deny complicity in the horrors of the Holocaust is dangerous.'