Thanks for Nothing AOC!

The Job Creators Network reacted to community activist turned freshman Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez's (D-NY 14th) celebration of chasing away Amazon from expanding its HQ2 to Long Island City (Queens), New York by erecting a pointed message at Times Square. The message offers some economic analysis for the loss of the business opportunity and sarcastically suggests: "Thanks for Nothing" AOC.

Trump Tosses Mud at the Thought of Ex Pat Hogs

President Donald Trump has been intent on establishing fair trade for the US. Thus, he has levied tariffs with both allies and "frienamies" alike.  Some of the nations targeted for tariffs have responded with retaliatory tariffs.  

One of the commodities President Trump has chosen to protect is the steel industry. Mr. Trump applied a 25% tariff on imported steel.  This causes the price of many manufactured durable goods to either increase prices or shift customary operating procedures.  This protectionism acts as a hidden tax on American consumers and makes US products less competitive. 

Harley Davidson is an iconic American motorcycle manufacturer which has recently found success in European markets.  The steel tariff raises the prices of  Harley Davidson hogs by about $2,000.  To try to remain competitive, the Milwaukee based company indicated that it would shift production overseas.



This news did not settle well with President Trump, who vowed retaliation on Harley Davidson. 

Since retaliatory tariffs have been implemented by our trading partners, the stock market went on an eight day slide, one day dropping 500 points.

Larry Kudlow

Perhaps Larry Kudlow, Trump's new Director of the National Economic Council, can convince the 45th President that when implementing threats of tariffs for "fair trade", there are unintended consequences to competitive advantage.

Some Thoughts Should Be Kept Close to the ScotteVest (sic)

Scott Jordan is an entrepreneur who developed a line of clothing which allows for fashionably carrying gadgets within the garments.  Jordan even went on ABC's Shark Tank in 2012 in a bid to raise funds for his technology enabled clothing (but Jordan  rejected the the offers). 

ScotteVest snowballed into a $10 million company by 2015.

ScotteVest's pricey e-commerce product line  were often seen advertised on Fox News, presumably to appeal to geeky traveling businessmen who tired of fumbling gadgets when they went through TSA lines.

ScotteVest CEO Scott Jordan may have unraveled this fashion market niche by oversharing on social media.  Scott Jordan had developed a reputation of being an outspoken CEO on social media, pumping products and pimping his progressive politics. However Jordan recently shared on Facebook a smarmy post which revealed marketing strategy while denigrating his customers.

While one could certainly see a small time celebutard who is full of himself to contemptuously sneer at the little people on whom you've made your millions while taking a chair lift in Ketchum ski resort.  But it is almost unfathomable that he would share this "burn" on social media. It really makes one wonder, to use Jordan's parlance, who is the "f**king idiot?

After Jordan's Facebook faux-pas festered for a few days, the ScotteVest CEO posted an incomplete apology on Twitter, which linked to the original Facebook post. Unfortunately, the Facebook post had been deleted.  

No doubt that this story certainly won't make ScotteVest's media buzz page. But the internet never forgets. The question is whether ScotteVest's customers will be willing to forget that they are considered to be gullible f**king idiots" by the guy profiting from their sales.

Social Media is a wonderful way for companies to reach customers. One need not be "Always Be Closing" when sharing on social media and genuineness is a way to cement bonds with fickle customers of an expensive, niche products.  But denigrating the demographic which lined one's pockets is an odd way to reach out to customers.  A smart CEO would have kept his crass critiques of customers closer to his ScotteVest. 

Enjoy your  après-ski canapés and hope that your cup is not forever full of sour grapes. 

Knob Hill Ski Lodge, Ketchum, Idaho 

Lou Holtz on the NFL's Take the Knee Conundrum

GAB Faces Big Fat Dilemma Balancing Free Speech and Censorship

Of late, there has been a growing realization that our internet overlords are controlling the public square.  In 2016, Facebook faced some consternation when the social media giant's curation of news in the sidebar consistently slighted conservative news stories.  Twitter took to banning some who defied the politically correct weltenanschauung that our cyber elites favor in their posts.  Milo Yiannopoulos was permanently banned from Twitter for posting  alt-right opinions while similar sort of liberal content continued unabated.  It is not uncommon for conservative sites to experience shadow-blocking, which covertly thwarts wider dissemination of posts through censoring algorithms. Platforms can summarily block access based on anonymous, spurious complaints, and due to the Star Chamber handling of such charges, it is almost impossible to protest much less redress any alleged issues.

To counter efforts of cyber-censorship, Andrew Torba et ali. created GAB during the summer of 2016.  As a social media platform, GAB exhorted users to #SpeakFreely and vowed not to censor posts unless it advocated violence or child pornography which was against laws.

As a start up, GAB not only faced typical challenges of funding and creating a market, but faced difficulties from a politically correct driven cyber community. GAB encountered tremendous difficulties from Apple to have a i-phone mobile app approved because of the Speak Freely philosophy.  Even after GAB successfully developed and started distributing an Android mobile app, there are concerns that the GAB appl will be removed from the Play Store because users might post objectionable contention on GAB's platform.

Alas, it is not only technology giants who are exerting their power as internet overlords.  The latest controversy involves a fat meme posted from a neo nazi (who has been banned from other sites and platforms).  Torba politely responded to the post that it was a violation of the Terms of Service and asked that it be taken down.  This uncharacteristic action roiled users who wrapped themselves around the mantra of #SpeakFreely.



Torba later clarified that Asia Registry, demanded that the post be banned or else GAB's registry would be revoked. The GAB leadership is currently scrambling to address the issue.

It is ironic that a fat joke would be used as the linchpin to destroy GAB, however that is the cause celebre which is being exploited by small time internet player Asia Registry, but they have the power.  Yet is mirrors the other tech giants efforts to obstruct alternatives to their virtual monopolies by using politically correct Trojan Horses.

In an age in which alleged micro-agressions, such as a Hobby Lobby customer is triggered by the "racist" notion of using cotton flowers in a vase, that the left countenances bilious blurtations when it tracks the progressive agenda of the moment. Such in loco parentis progressive sensibilities prompted a Zerohedge pundit to wonder if Internet behemoths are acting as colonial powers.

UPDATE: September 19, 2017

GAB was successful in finding other registrar for the domain which would not play games with them.

Henry Ford on Capital

Bruce Springsteen on Honest Work

All those years of building an image of being a working class hero seems to have been all a conceit. 

With such a dodgey work history, one wonders who's really "The Boss" at the Springsteen household.

Well, at least let's hope that Bruce doesn't try to compensate by buying Nordstrom's $425 fake work jeans with the simulated mud coating. 

Peter Thiel on Globalization

Peter Thiel on Success

Gabbing about the Capricious Cupertino Walled Garden of Apple

Gab is a new micoblogging site which was started in the summer of 2016 as conservative voices experienced cyber-censorship about content from social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter.  Gab wants to create a cyber community which users can speak freely and exercise their own judgment to filter content. 

Gab started with a beta platform geared towards personal computers.  However, since the growth in social media is associated with mobile internet applications, Gab has sought to get approval from Apple to have their app approved to be available in Apple app store.

Because Gab encourages members to #SpeakFreely, they do not want to censor content created by Gab users, as long it conforms to US law and the Constitution regarding obscenity and pornography.  In rare instances, the Gab platform would allow for legal pornography as long as it was tagged #NSFW (not safe for work).  But this loophole created the first objection for the Apple App Review team.  To resolve this, Gab linked their EULA agreement, albeit outside of the app.  The allowed for the second rejection, which was easily abated. 

What has raised eyebrows is the tardy and hypocritical third rejection by the app team. Ordinarily, apps are evaluated within 24 hours.  For Gab's third app submission, it took 17 days. In addition, it was rejected on the grounds that "We found references to religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, or other targeted groups that could be offensive to many users."

So Gab is supposed to play nanny to user epithets and ideas which an aggrieved internet denizen could find offensive.  But Gab allows its users to filter out content which they do not want to see, but the powers that be in Cupertino do not want their i-Phone/i-Pad users to be scandalized by material in Gab (which they could filter out themselves).  

Is the same stringent Cupertino standard applied to Madonna's post Women's March musings?  

Wonder why?  Is Twitter going to have their app taken away for the rude ravings of an aged Material Girl who creates controversy on social media to seem contemporary?

Gab CEO Andrew Torba wonders if the third rejection of Gab's app was timed to coincide with President Trump's first full day in office and was meant to sent a message.  Torba asserted: 

"This clear double standard against us is potentially politically motivated and clearly targeted. When you actively search for something on a user generated website, chances are you're going to find what you are looking for."

Progressives sought to kill Gab by claiming that it was only for the alt-right and that it lacked diversity, which fails when one considers that Gabs leadership team is comprised of an American Christian, a Turkish Muslim Kurd and an Indian Hindu.  Since the slimming was unsuccessful, it seems that progressive companies are seeking to deny Gab from tools to grow their user base by any means necessary.

With the shadow-blocking and capricious shunnings by big social media, those who want to share opinions which challenge the standard assumptions of progressive elites, they may look to social media alternatives such as Gab.  Alas, Apple continues to make access restricted inside the walled garden

Calvin Coolidge on Business

Toss the Tam to Honor the Life of Mary Tyler Moore

Actress Mary Tyler Moore died at the age of 80 in Greenwich, Connecticut from complications stemming from pneumonia.  Moore had battled adult onset diabetes for decades and in 2011 she had undergone elective brain surgery to remove a benign meningioma.  

While Moore had several notable silver screen roles, including an Academy Award nominated performance in the drama Ordinary People (1981), she is best remembered as an actor for starring in two extremely successful television situation comedies, The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-1966) and the eponymous Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-1977).  

Moore and her husband Grant Tinker ran a production company which spawned many successful television series, such as the Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin offs Rhoda, Lou Grant, Phyllis along with The Bob Newhart Show and WKRP in Cincinnati. 

The Mary Tyler Moore show depicted a thirty something news writer working in a television newsroom in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  At the time, it was daring to feature a career woman trying to make it on her own.  The opening credits famously finished with an exhuberant Moore tossing her tam in the air in a crosswalk, as a valedictory gesture that "you're going to make it after all".



The iconic sequence was immortalized in bronze by TV Land in 2002 as street art near a shopping center.  The statute is currently on location at a Visitors Center in Minneapolis while the sidewalks are being repaired.

In honor of Ms. Moore's passing, it is right to figuratively toss our tams and fondly remember one who turned the world on with her smile and know that she made it after all.

Considering Donald Trump's Marketing Mentality

John Perry Barlow on Libertarians

Sign of the Times?: Rogue Won (sic)

In the run up to the premiere first cinematic Star Wars spin-off, famed street artist Sabo graced LA-LA land with a roguish parody which matched up Rogue One with Election 2016. 

These faux movie posted popped up all around Hollywood Boulevard.  Sabo's signs had a heroic Trump along with Steve Bannon, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Julian Assange, Milo, Yiannopoulos and Gavin McInness. 

But Sabo was not the first one to make this connection. 

It seems the anti-hero depends up who is telling the story.  

Perhaps Disney will update Star Wars episode Five with "The Media Empire Strikes Back". But that may not be a part of the Culture Wars tales. 

H/T: Hollywood Reporter 

Andrew Torba on Free Speech in Social Media

J.P. Getty on Money

Bill Gates on Washington

Hillary Panders to Latinos with Bland Salsa

While speaking before the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Hillary Clinton tried to ingratiate herself with Hispanic voters by making a big deal about taco trucks.





This shout out to Latinos seems prepackaged, calling to mind the old Pace Picante Salsa commercial which impeached prepackaged salsa from New York City.

Perhaps this is why the Clinton Campaign has pivoted on pandering to Hispanics by pushing the Miss Universe/Trump angle-- it's a two for one with Latinos' and the Womens' vote.

Donald Trump on Flint and Water

Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump (R-NY) visited a water plant in Flint, Michigan in an effort to court Black voters in a minority majority city and win a potential Rust Belt swing state.

During the visit, Trump belted out a zinger about Flint, Mexico and water.  While some could see this just as a cheap shot at the host city of Flint, it may have been targeted witticism. 

 Aside from burnished the Trump political brand against Mexico, it also played off of news that Ford Motor Company will be moving all of its small car manufacturing from the United States to Mexico in order to produce a profitable product. Such a move would hurt automotive jobs in Michigan and goes against Trump's mantra "To Make America Great Again."