Trump denies attacks on Elijah Cummings are racist

Rep. Cummings

It really should not come as much of a surprise that once again, Donald Trump is race baiting - since it worked for him so well in 2016, sending him to the Oval Office; yet it would not be inaccurate to say that this has not been a national momentum, for many white Americans who  resented the black civil rights movement of the 1960s, taking their grievances underground to send the racist cartoons, jokes, and using derogatory language of race.

Trump had a trial run with his “birther” attacks on President Obama, and demands for his birth certificate, to “show” he was not born in Kenya, but the U.S. and thus ineligible for the presidency.

While that seemed ludicrous to some, but yet the stage was set and the fast forward to Trump’s latest Twitter rage, attacking Rep. Elijah Cummings of Baltimore; but also reveals a defensive crouch because Cummings is about to subpoena cell phone records of his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law, Jared Kushner; so now the wrath of the mighty is combined with, what most people recognize as the key to winning those undecided independent voters, to give him an edge beyond the 44 percent support that has almost become standard polling when covering President Trump.

As CNN noted on Monday, “Pinching the racial nerve of US society is behind his attacks on Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland and the whole city of Baltimore as well as his efforts to vilify four progressive lawmakers -- all women and minorities.”

The rhetoric is getting nastier by the day, exceeding his previous attacks on the Squad -  the four liberal lawmakers, led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the House of Representatives.

To date: “This latest episode involves Cummings, chair of the House Oversight Committee, who is overseeing multiple investigations of Trump and top administration officials. Trump tweeted over the weekend that Cummings' district is a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess."

One thinks of the baby blimp balloons that Londoners saw, on the president's two visits to Queen Elizabeth, but while this is amusing to some, it goes even deeper as Trump revists, his old playbook, in effect extending his “shit hole” descriptions of some African communities; knowing that this target of urban blight, viewed by his base as the exclusive domain of black urban Americans, he brings it front and center, for his base.

While many New Yorkers previously thought of him as a con man, it’s necessary to see how clever he truly is, in battle, and that this is what the 2020 election is about for Trump: a fight to the finish to keep his self-proclaimed position.

In the absence of his father, Fred, to spend millions to keep him  afloat in university, and business,  the fight to keep the top job, is at the core of these crude remarks.

The question that roils across the wide-planked floors of liberal elites, and their supporters, is just who are the people this rhetoric is intended for?

“The audience for these attacks wasn't voters in Baltimore or anywhere near it, just as the audience for Trump's vicious attacks on immigrants isn't people who live in border areas or cities. It's the base of supporters in the South and in the Rust Belt who handed him electoral victory in 2016 and who he hopes will do so again.”

"He is exciting his base," said Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory who is an expert on race and politics. "He's reminding folks based on their resentments, stoking their resentments, that there are all these testy people who are saying we should do this or we should do that and they shouldn't have this much power.”

We have a history here, of course, Nixon’s southern strategy, while not a bright line, has some resonance, but who can forget President Reagan’s description of the “welfare queen” in her Cadillac, as the television audience nudged each other and Mrs. Reagan, clapped in approval.

“But there is a direct line from Nixon's coded "law and order" campaign in 1968 to Ronald Reagan's warnings against "welfare queens" in 1980 and beyond, according to a recent piece by Angie Maxwell, a University of Arkansas political scientist.

"Trump, in many ways, is no anomaly. He is the very culmination of the GOP's long Southern strategy," she wrote.

Going even further we can now see that this is indeed the direction that the country has taken, and is going, and on a more direct path than some can acknowledge.

“There is evidence that his efforts to further divide the country are working. In a Pew study released in April, 58% of Americans said race relations in the US were bad, 56% said Trump has made them worse and nearly two-thirds said people are expressing racist views more with Trump as President.”

Even abroad in the horrific shootings in the mosque in New Zealand, the shooter, while dreading Trump’s politics, praised his xenophobic racism.

The support, near hero worshiping, that he has gained from white supremacists adds further to the racist label. Even more disturbing were the damaging pictures of the Charlottesville marchers wearing his trademark informal uniform of khaki pants, white golf shirts and red caps emblazoned with the tagline, of his own campaign, “Make America Great Again.”

In a previous column, last October, we wrote about Trump’s remarks about the Puerto Rican hurricanes. They bear worth repeating:

“The recent hurricanes and tornadoes in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico have resulted in great personal and economic damage to the United States, but they have also added to the perception that President Donald Trump is a racist. While Texas and Florida faced equally damaging loss of life and property as did Puerto Rico, it was only Puerto Ricans that were told that they were expecting too much from the federal government and that they needed to do more on their own, an oft repeated phrase from whites towards blacks in their struggle for civil rights during the 1960s.”

The race optics became even worse with his condemnation of the NFL players protesting the ill-treatment of black men, by some of the nation’s police and by mostly black players, joined with his verbal recommendation to “get that son of a bitch off the field,” if he did not stand for the national anthem.

“Circling back to Charlottesville, we get the lion’s share of remarks when he said that there was blame on both sides, as hundreds of white supremacists marched towards a group or bedraggled, mostly University of Virginia undergraduates, protesters, angry about the invasion of their town to support an untenable position.”

Winning independent voters to his side, is the goal, and the remembrance that 54 percent of Americans did not vote for him, in 2016, must be a constant reminder as he sends out the attack tweets, and organizes his rallies, with the roar of the crowd, and chants of “Send them home!”

The Hill has reported that “President Trump on Tuesday said his ongoing barrage of attacks on Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and the city of Baltimore are not part of a larger political strategy, telling reporters he's "pointing out facts" in repeatedly criticizing the city's conditions.

"There’s no strategy. I have no strategy. There’s zero strategy," Trump said upon returning to the White House from a trip to Jamestown, Va.

"All it is, I’m pointing out facts," he added. "The most unsafe city in our country is Baltimore."

Turning back to his prior attacks on some African countries, we read this: “The president has waged a days-long onslaught of criticism directed at Cummings and the city of Baltimore. He has denigrated the city as a "very dangerous & filthy place" where "no human being would want to live" and claimed Cummings is racist.”

And, almost unbelievably, we have this assertion, in true Trumpian style, "If the news reported it properly of all of the things I’ve done for African Americans ... I think I’d do very well with the African Americans," Trump said. "And I think I'm doing very well right now."

The president rejected “the findings of a new Quinnipiac University poll that found 80 percent of black voters believe Trump is racist.”

A recent poll also revealed that nearly one-third of independent voters would not vote for Trump, and as political observers have long acknowledged, for presidential races, it’s all about the numbers.

June Jobs Report: the good, the bad and the ugly

June is traditionally the season for brides in the U.S. -- who doesn’t want to be a June Bride, say many social arbiters, but while modern brides are marrying, when they choose to, almost any time and nearly anyplace, June was the month for a rebound in the American jobs market, and defying, cautious estimates from economists, and bankers, predicting between 165-170,000 jobs, rose to a whopping 224,000, giving the market, some economists, and of course, President Trump, a surge, and a big sigh of relief after a moribund May, that sent hopes reeling, and the Federal Reserve Board looking anxious.

What we didn’t see in Friday’s report, from the Labor Department,  and may not see, is substantial wage increase, where the now average hourly rate for employers is $27.90 an hour, showed a modest increase of 6 cents, but as many a Southern grandma, has said, “Ain’t no matter!”

That is what many of those whose business to watch the economy said. In fact, they said a lot, and some of it was optimistic, but some was tempered with caution.

The venerable New York Times said, “Friday’s figures were the latest evidence that the economy is gradually cooling, not headed for a deep freeze. Separate data from the Institute for Supply Management this week showed that both the manufacturing and services sectors grew in June by a variety of measures, though more slowly than in May. The housing market has shown signs of weakness, but that hasn’t yet discouraged consumers from spending money, perhaps because layoffs are near record lows.”

Let’s lead with this: “The rebound in construction and manufacturing has been particularly encouraging considering the hit that those industries have taken from the tariffs and trade war.” said Thomas Simons, Jefferies LLC.

Northern Trust’s Carl Tannenbaum said the jobs report would be “seen as a relief” — adding it’s “probably not enough to change the Fed’s tracking to a 25 [basis-point] cut” at its July 30-31 meeting, quoted MarketWatch.

“The strong June jobs numbers start the summer off on a strong footing for the American worker, and a big disappointment for the markets that are hoping for substantial interest rate cuts from the Fed. The 224,000 jobs added were broad based, with good gains in everything from manufacturing to construction to business services. The one weak category is retailing, as that industry moves from brick-and-mortar to online.” was the view of Robert Frick, Navy Federal Credit Union.

If there is a pattern to be seen, it is the role of the Federal Reserve, who said last month that it was going to hold off on any rate increases till the end of July, but now most have said that there would be only a modest change, and that might be true.

On the opposing side, is that “Despite the strong jobs data, some European investors still expect a series of rate cuts in the U.S., which could narrow the gap between the rates in the U.S. and Europe over the coming months.”

“Dickie Hodges, head of unconstrained fixed income at Nomura, has been buying up debt issued by governments in the periphery of the eurozone this year, expecting rates in the U.S. to drop as much as 100 basis points over the next 12 months, “ said the Wall Street Journal.

“The Federal Reserve will be readjusting and this, in my opinion, is regardless of any stability in U.S. economic growth and regardless of the fact that the unemployment numbers show the U.S. has added 224,000 new jobs in June, which is above people's expectations,” Hodges added.

Adding to the mix, is this opinion: "The data are unlikely to stop the Fed from easing at this month’s meeting; the well-signaled easing reflects officials’ worries about the potential drag on growth from trade-related 'uncertainties,' along with sub-2% inflation. However, the report adds to the likelihood that the easing will be of 25 rather than 50 basis points," Jim O’Sullivan, chief U.S. economist at economic and research consulting firm HFE says in a note, to the WSJ.

Also, of note, is that the report comes after the change of heart for Mexican tariffs to Mexico, but with the Chinese tariffs still in question, but with some signs of hope, with pending negotiations, some are feeling that this might indeed be a sign of confidence, not only in the market, but with the Feds.

Adding a bit of spice, or maybe even vinegar is this, “I am “less confident than before that a trade deal will be done since, unlike earlier this year, the interminable U.S. presidential election season has now begun,” wrote Christopher Wood, global head of equity strategy at Jeffries, in a Thursday note to clients, “ and quoted by MarketWatch.

“This means Trump will have to defend any deal with Beijing against [Democratic] criticism. It also remains the case that the Fed, via its dovish language of late, has enabled Trump’s hard-line on trade,” he added.

"This is really a mixed bag of news," said Mike Loewengart, vice president of investment strategy at E*Trade, in emailed comments [to MarketWatch]. The good: the strength of Friday's non-farm payrolls figure helped ease fears sparked by a soft ADP reading earlier in the week and a more lackluster report last month. But the unemployment rate ticked higher and wage growth has retreated from a recent peak hit in the spring.

"It's not the kind of clean read that will help bolster the Fed's position in either direction," Mr. Loewengart said to the Journal.

Taking a further step is this opines: “I don’t see the Fed changing what they’ll do based on one jobs report,” JJ Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade, told MarketWatch. “The market says the probabilities of a rate cut are 100%. The Fed has been backed into a corner because expectations are so high.”

Kinahan added, however, that the overall strength of the jobs market, as evidenced again by Friday’s report, could cause the Fed to just cut rates once, and then delay the timing of the next cut to get a better sense of the pace of the U.S. economic slowdown.”

“I don’t think it is large enough to steer them away from an interest-rate cut,” said  Tannenbaum.

“We’re on track for a quarter-point cut at the end of the month.”

Tannenbaum said the Fed can package a rate cut as “insurance” rather than necessity. It can then wait and see if more is needed. The strong data removes the sense that the Fed is behind the curve or in panic mode, he added,”: which seems to support Hodge’s belief.

Wages still concern us, and the paltry 6 cents rise should give any diehard macro economists concern for a true rebound, and retail continues to plunge, and “from January through mid-June, U.S. companies announced plans to close some 7,000 brick-and-mortar stores, more closures than in all of 2018,” and in an industry where half of all employees are women, this becomes a cloud on the sunny skies of this report, noted The Washington Post in June.

Just ahead of Friday’s report, there were “Expectations are for a deceleration in job growth. Job growth is decelerating quite sharply from 2018. The real issue for the Fed is what’s wage growth, and it’s not been promising of late,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton. “We’ve seen 3.1% after hitting a peak of 3.4%. If we stay in that 3% range, that’s enough for the doves at the Fed to go. The question is can they bring the hawks along with them. They’re really going to be looking at the wage number.”

An area not helped by the Trump Tariffs, is retail, that can “stress the already-thin profit margins” raising prices on everything from cell phones to toys and shoes, they said, along with one important facet: “They source much of their inventory from China and can't reroute their supply chains easily, cheaply, or quickly.”

Adding further concern, and giving a less optimistic opine than that of the Times, is Challenger, Gray & Christmas,Inc,” who in an earlier press release, said that “U.S.-based employers announced plans to cut 140,577 jobs from their payrolls in the second quarter of this year, down 26% from the 190,410 cuts announced in the first quarter. Despite the drop, Q2 cuts are 34% higher than the 104,800 cuts announced in the same quarter last year, according to the latest report on job cuts released Wednesday.”

Market reaction showed a downturn and “Stocks fell from all-time highs on Friday after the release of stronger jobs data dampened hope for easier Federal Reserve monetary policy.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average pulled back 43.88 points to 26,922.12, snapping a four-day winning streak. The S&P 500 slipped 0.2% to 2,990.41 and ended a five-day winning streak. The Nasdaq Composite fell for the first time in seven sessions, slipping 0.1% to 8,161.79. Earlier in the session, the Dow dropped as much as 232.67 points, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq slid nearly 1% each.

Despite Friday’s losses, the major indexes posted solid weekly gains. The Dow and S&P 500 rose more than 1% each this week while the Nasdaq gained nearly 2%. Stocks also posted all-time highs on Wednesday.”

“The jobs number was solid,” said Gregory Faranello, head of U.S. rates at Amerivet Securities. “The real theme now will be shifting very quickly to what the number means in the context of what we’re pricing in for the Fed in July.”

While the banner rate grabs all of the heads over the cubes, and in the coffee shops, a better indicator of how the jobs market is trending is the U-6 rate which gives a more accurate picture and includes those that are either stuck in part-time jobs, or have been job searching for more than 20 weeks. And, that has improved.

“The number of persons working part time for economic reasons decreased in June to 4.347 million from 4.355 million in May. The number of persons working part time for economic reasons has been generally trending down. These workers are included in the alternate measure of labor underutilization (U-6) that increased to 7.2% in June,” noted Calculatedrisk.blog.

Some final good news: “The labor force participation rate increased one-tenth to 62.9%, its best since March, pushing up the headline and “real” unemployment rates. The total labor force increased by 335,000 to just under 163 million while those counted as not in the labor force fell by 158,000 to 96.1 million;” good but not great, but shows some promise.

All of this aside, It seems that all heads, cooler, or not, are pointing to Fed Chair Jerome Powell and his team, this July to see what will happen.

Biden and Buttigieg: clueless on racial issues in the US

The 2020 election began with the inauguration of Donald J. Trump who filed almost immediately for reelection, and the race has been on in what has become a very crowded field of contenders among the Democrats with former Vice President Joe Biden being dusted off as “electable” and quickly followed by a resurgent Bernie Sanders, a hopeful Elizabeth Warren and emerging in second place, California Sen. Kamala Harris who showed strong stuff in the debates.

Of the issues that has showed itself to be enduring is that of race, specifically, the role and issues facing the black community in America, who despite the passage of the Civil Rights and 50 years of progress still remain behind their white counterparts, especially financially, as The Economist has said, “Yet after decades of declining discrimination and the construction of a modern welfare state, that ratio remains the same. The mean of black household wealth is $138,200—for whites, that number is $933,700.”

They also reported that, “A recent study by Dionissi Aliprantis and Daniel Carroll, research economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, argues that the persistent racial gap in wealth can be almost entirely accounted for by the racial gap in income. According to the latest figures, from 2017, the median black household takes in $40,258 a year compared with $68,145 for the typical white one.”

A look back into the rear view mirror of history, has brought more than objects closer than they appear; with Biden’s awkward, and, ultimately, contentious comment of being able to work with segregationist lawmakers, and the resulting firestorm, setting the bar low, before a group of wealthy, and potential donors, according to Vox, “he brought up segregationist senators Eastland and Herman Talmadge (D-GA). Though he disagreed with them, he said, “we got things done.”

Then the bombshell: “. . .a guy like Herman Talmadge, one of the meanest guys I ever knew, you go down the list of all these guys. Well guess what? At least there was some civility. We got things done. We didn’t agree on much of anything. We got things done. We got it finished. But today, you look at the other side and you’re the enemy. Not the opposition, the enemy. We don’t talk to each other anymore.”

While some wags subsequently made reference to “Shoeless Joe”, others were less charitable, and began calling him “Clueless Joe”.

Then there were his defenders telling us what he meant to say, as if that particular road to hell was truly paved with good intentions.

Up next is the genial and boyish Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind. facing a hostile “shout down” crowd of his angry black residents after a series of missteps that included his firing of a popular black police chief who was “under FBI investigation for wiretapping white officers who had been suspected of using racist language investigating racist remarks,” and showed a sense of incredulity when facing their anger, and who stumbled, when asked, point blank, if black lives matter,  and who repeated the question before answering in the affirmative.

What we have observed, along with others, is that it seems that Biden is stuck in a time warp, despite his seemingly avuncular geniality, and has not faced the changed Democratic party, that is more left leaning; and, a lesson he should have learned from Hillary Clinton, whose adherence to centrist position, was one, of many reasons, she lost the presidency in 2016.

The young man from Indiana seems clueless to a demographic that is necessary for any win of the nomination for the United States presidency.

Pew Research, that venerable institution, opined, “The black eligible voter population has grown about as fast as the electorate overall, meaning their share has held constant at about 12% since 2000,” a fact that Buttigieg seems to have not known.

When wedded to the record that despite having placing second, in number, to Hispanics, as the nation’s largest voting bloc, blacks have, in fact, voted in greater numbers than the former.

Going back to historical precedent, while many people point to the Civil Rights Legislation of 1964, when blacks started voting largely Democratic, “It's important to note, though, that African Americans were already voting more heavily for Democrats than Republicans. At no point from 1936 on, according to Joint Center data, has the Republican candidate for president gotten more than 40 percent of the black vote.”

White candidates, in particular, must gain a greater sensitivity to their issues such  as employment, housing, education, and most salient of all, how police misconduct can make or break a community, and the voting booth.

Race is not only America’s most intractable problem; it is going to be one of the most important factors in the 2020 presidential race.

Flexing some political muscle on the issue is Kamala Harris, (daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father) who identifies as black, and a graduate of Howard University, excoriated Biden on his prior stance of opposition to bussing, and used her childhood self as an example, a brilliant tour de force that cameras showed a grimacing Biden.

Optics aside, how the Democratic candidates show their understanding of black America, is going to be especially potent, when they face off with President Trump who has shown a dismissive, if often benign, contempt for black Americans, be it for his assertion of the “good people” among white supremacists, or referring, disrespectfully, to a wounded black veteran, as “your man” to his widow, or Buttigieg,who has stumbled too often, and despite his cultivated air of thoughtfulness, seems to be running, (as he has done for too long), on a narrative, instead of substance as a recent Time Magazine interview revealed.

As The Nation noted, in their debate coverage, “a parallel drama occurred when moderator Rachel Maddow pressed South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg about a police shooting in his city. As Maddow accurately noted, civil rights groups are unhappy not just with Buttigieg handling of the shooting but also his inability to discipline the South Bend police force. Before the shooting, the officer had turned off his body camera, making the incident all the more suspicious.”

“The police force in South Bend is now 6 percent black in a city that is 26 percent black,” Maddow noted. “Why has that not improved over your two terms as mayor?”

Buttigieg responded with contrition. “Because I couldn’t get it done,” Buttigieg confessed. “And I could walk you through all of the things that we have done as a community, all of the steps that we took, from bias training to de-escalation, but it didn’t save the life of Eric Logan. And when I look into his mother’s eyes, I have to face the fact that nothing that I say will bring him back.”

“This acknowledgement of inadequacy was humanizing—but also unsatisfying. Not surprisingly, Buttigieg rivals grabbed the opportunity to undermine him further. Former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper wasn’t impressed by Buttigieg claims to be trying to solve the problem. Hickenlooper remarked that “the question they’re asking in South Bend and I think across the country is why has it taken so long?” After all, other jurisdictions have been moving forward with police accountability.”

They noted that, “Both Biden and Buttigieg discovered that their record on racism has seriously wounded their presidential bids. According to a poll conducted by Morning Consult for FiveThirtyEight, Biden lost nearly a quarter of his support after the debates, dropping from 41.5 percent to 31.5 percent. Buttigieg, starting from a lower floor, lost nearly a third of his support, going from 6.7 to 4.8 percent. (By comparison, Kamala Harris more than doubled her support, going from 7.9 to 16.6 percent; Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren also experienced significant, if smaller, gains).”

Looking southward to South Bend, it is a microcosm on one of the key issues, in the US: overzealous cops shooting black kids, and avoiding best practices policing that have worked in other areas to reduce the “occupation mentality”; in fact, “South Bend has in fact been going backwards under Buttigieg watch. The number of black officers on the city’s force has dropped from 29 in 2012 to 15 in 2019. Interviewed by Huff Post, Oliver Davis, one of the longest-serving black politicians in South Bend, said, “These kind of issues have not been his priorities.” Davis added, “He responds when he has to, but you go back to April, and they were saying the whole makeup of his campaign staff lacked diversity, OK?”

Once again, the candidate relies on a narrative when he says, ““I’m not allowed to take sides until the investigation comes back,” Buttigieg said. “The officer said he was attacked with a knife but he didn’t have his body camera on. It’s a mess and we’re hurting. I could walk you through all the things we have done as a community, all the steps that we took, from bias training to de-escalation, but it didn’t save the life of Eric Logan.”

We reached out to the Buttigieg campaign, before the debate, with emailed suggestions in specific areas to help blacks, not only in South Bend, but also in the country, on education, healthcare and employment, and pointed out the inadequacy of his housing program, as reported in Time magazine, to either tear down, dilapidated homes, or “fix up 1,000 in 1,000 days,” in predominantly black areas, but with no financial assistance, and at publication date received no response.

As is becoming very clear with him, there seems to be a lack of interest, when confronted on race, and the mayor’s reply, which did not endear him the Fraternal Order of Police, in South Bend was this: ‘All police work and all of American life takes place in the shadow of racism’ is divisive.’”

All? Either he is not thinking, or has not done his homework on the issue.

The reaction to residents, according to The New York Times, was also weak, although Buttigieg does have some supporters in the black community of South Bend, albeit those who have a vested interest in working with him, such as the local leader of the NAACP.

Others seem to speak for many: ““It’s not in his best interest to go into all of it because he knows he didn’t do anything,” said Jordan Geiger, who works for a nonprofit group.

“But he needs to speak to those,” Ms. Batiste-Waddell said. “That’s how I believe our department got to the point of killing a black man. Because none of the other racial things that have happened have been addressed.”

Making things worse was the following exchange when he interrupted the campaign to come home to address a shooting, from the Daily Beast:

“The tension reached a flashpoint as Buttigieg arrived in South Bend, which has a significant African-American population, on Friday, when a woman confronted him about his desire to win over black voters in the city. “You’re running for president and you want black people to vote for you?” the woman said. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Ma’am, I’m not asking for your vote,” Buttigieg responded.

After meeting with members of The Congressional Black Caucus, in South Carolina, the mayor sidestepped interviewers’ questions about what he learned, by saying, ““Those meetings are extremely informative for understanding some of the issues that are at the top of their agenda,” Buttigieg said. “As long as black Americans are cut out of equal access to criminal justice, to homeownership, to education, to health outcomes that other Americans enjoy, we’ve got a problem.”

Huh?