I recently became aware that Darcy G. Richardson is seeking the Presidential nomination of the Reform Party. The Reform Party is holding its national convention starting today, 29 July through 31 July in Bohemia, New York. While I have never met Darcy personally, I consider him a virtual friend. We are both long time contributors to the third party news website Independent Political Report (IPR) as well as frequent commenters.
Traditionally presidential election campaigns are said to begin in earnest after Labor Day, but with the mutual rancor between the two parties and their candidates, things should heat up right away now that both conventions are over.
Wednesday's release of US oil data for the week ending July 15th by the US Energy Information Administration indicated that our oil imports rebounded back to above recent averages, that our refineries ramped back up to seasonal levels to use all of those extra imports, and as a result another small portion of our monstrous glut of crude oil was converted into a glut of refined products.
In early 2015, well before Donald Trump was a blip on the radar screen, a friend asked me to contribute an article to a Constitution Party newsletter, so I happily obliged. The article was entitled “Needed: a Real Country Party,” but because of the nature of the venue it was never made available for wide public viewing. I am currently working on an update of that article because I believe it helps explain why Donald Trump and Trumpism have succeeded beyond the wildest dreams (or nightmares) of the political and pundit class.
Bernie Sanders recently upset many of his supporters when he endorsed Hillary Clinton. I’m not a Bernie supporter, and I’m disappointed he endorsed Hillary, but I did have a certain grudging respect for the man as an honest old school leftist who focused on class rather than the Cultural Marxist grievance stoking and thought policing that characterizes the modern left. That said, I think it is useful to look at Bernie’s endorsement and how his supporters have reacted and contrast it to the NeverTrump effort.
This video by Steve Deace, who I believe to be one of the sincere but misguided leaders of the NeverTrump effort, is a perfect illustration of the insular nature of much of official conservatism. Deace concedes that the Establishment does not like Trump, but sees the Establishment’s unwillingness to join the NeverTrump crusade as an opportunistic effort to join forces with a supposedly anti-conservative Trump and attempt to crush authentic conservatism.
As a good traditional conservative, I like Westerns. If you watch a lot of Westerns you will eventually discern that many of them have a very similar theme. This theme is that the breed of men it took to tame the Wild West is different from the breed of men it took to civilize the West once it was more or less tamed. This is an important life lesson with real world application. Conservatives should watch more Westerns and less Fox News.
Our trade deficit increased by 10.1% in May as the value of our exports decreased and the value of our imports increased. The Census report on our international trade in goods and services for May indicated that our seasonally adjusted goods and services trade deficit rose by $3.8 billion (rounded) to $41.1 billion in May from a revised April deficit of $37.4 billion.
The Manufacturers' Shipments, Inventories, and Orders report shows factory new orders declined by -1.0% for May. That's after April new orders increased 1.8%. Durable goods new orders by themselves dropped by -2.3% for May after an April 3.2% icnrease. Transportation new orders plunged by -5.7%.
The May report Personal Income and Outlays from theBEA gives us nearly half the data that will go into 2nd quarter GDP, since it gives us 2 months of data on our personal consumption expenditures (PCE), which accounts for more than 2/3rds of GDP, and the PCE price index, which is used to adjust that personal spending data for inflation to give us the relative change in the output of goods and services that our spending indicated.
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