Important headlines for January 10th:
Bottom Line: These are stories you don't want to miss and my hot takes on them...
Excerpt: Florida Power & Light Co. on Monday flew 140 line workers to help reconnect power in Puerto Rico, three months after hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated the island and wiped out its power.
The utility, which provides service to more than half of Florida, was asked by Puerto Rico’s electric authority to help complete the restoration, said FPL spokesman Bill Orlove. The island’s power outage has been the longest in American history, leaving residents not only in the dark, but also without clean water.
Hot Take: It's critical that we don't forget about Puerto Rico. Unless you have friends or family on the Island it's easily out of sight and out of mind but for much of the island it's been months of living like a third world country. While most of us were distraught when we were without power for a few days, there have been 1.5 million Puerto Ricans without power for over 100 days and counting. That's right - 44% of the Island's population is still without power. To be sure many of the problems on the island were years in the making - inadequate infrastructure, construction standards that didn't meet current code, botching the contract process for power restoration after the storm and a myriad of fiscal problems more than a decade in the making; but the fact remains that over a million Americans are still in some dire situation months after Maria's impact. It's good to see FPL's ability to step up and help and if you're in a position to do so and are inclined there's a big need for resources and aid generally. It's hard to imagine the state of the economy which was already in recession before all of this.
Is Trump Really Crazy? Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness
Excerpt: Wolff’s disclosures, if a few are even marginally true, are messy and the stuff of caricature—but not as funny and depressing as the fact that someone of Trump’s background and temperament saw more clearly than his supposed betters where the country should be headed and who might lead it in such a direction.
If that be chaos, then Trump made the most of it—and at least for now the result is preferable to the mannered mediocrity of the past. Such an admission says lots more about those who think they should be in power than it does those who voted for their antitheses.
So, here's the thing. An attorney operating as a community organizer turned politician becomes President and he's brilliant, articulate and who could forget clean (to quote Joe Biden). He sent chills and thrills up legs of journalists (to cite Chris Matthews) and he engineered the worst sustained economy in the history of the United States of America. We had eight years of growth averaging 1.8% and the average American who saw their quality of life decline when compared to inflation.
Enter a billionaire businessman who created and operated a multi-billion-dollar company operating in over 20 countries. He repeals thousands of regulations and the economy surges to growth over 3% and sustains it for the first time since 2005. Hiring surges and African-American unemployment falls to a record low and Hispanic unemployment hits the second lowest level on record. He then cuts taxes on individuals and businesses that led to the largest income growth and bonuses in ten years resulting in the average American having a 7% increase in take home compensation within his first full year as President. Now this one's crazy, a moron, and idiot, etc. Makes perfect sense right. You literally can't be more wrong than the narratives advanced by many mainstream media outlets and for those on the left - at least if you want to see Americans prosper and have their lives improved. But then again isn't that potentially a dirty little secret? If you're better off you don't need the government as much. You don't need to pay attention to the leftists in the media attempting to scare you into voting against your self-interests. It's not good for business - from their perspective.
The Media's Standard for Trump: 'Fake But Accurate'? David Harsanyi, The Federalist
Excerpt: Michael Wolff has given the media a convenient excuse to repeat unverified stories about the Trump administration
Hot Take: This hits at my operating theory. Michael Wolff knows he's perpetuating a series of lies. Wolff also knows that he can make a lot of money doing it and marketing it to the radical leftists that loathe the President in a myriad of willing media outlets. He also knows that millions of Americans that're filled with bigotry and hatred will vote by buying the book. This takes us back to the media.
Here was CNN's statement on Fire and Fury: "CNN has not independently confirmed all of Wolff's assertions. But the broader portrait of a President surrounded by aides and advisers wary of his temperament has been borne out in conversations with officials over the past year"
Here was CNN's statement in 2012 on an unflattering book with many salacious assertions regarding Barack Obama in 2012: “CNN has not independently confirmed many of Klein’s assertions, so we doubt the veracity of the book as a whole.”
Any questions?
Until tomorrow...