Washington Examiner – American Conservative Movement https://americanconservativemovement.com American exceptionalism isn't dead. It just needs to be embraced. Fri, 22 Nov 2024 05:00:14 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.2 https://americanconservativemovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/cropped-America-First-Favicon-32x32.png Washington Examiner – American Conservative Movement https://americanconservativemovement.com 32 32 135597105 U.S. Automakers Think They’re Beyond the Point of No Return Thanks to EV Mandates https://americanconservativemovement.com/u-s-automakers-think-theyre-beyond-the-point-of-no-return-thanks-to-ev-mandates/ https://americanconservativemovement.com/u-s-automakers-think-theyre-beyond-the-point-of-no-return-thanks-to-ev-mandates/#respond Fri, 22 Nov 2024 05:00:14 +0000 https://americanconservativemovement.com/u-s-automakers-think-theyre-beyond-the-point-of-no-return-thanks-to-ev-mandates/ Donald Trump has promised that during his second term he will rein in the tyrannical electric vehicle mandates that have put U.S. automakers in precarious situations the past four years. But some are suggesting that as bad as the mandates are, revoking them could make things worse.

In essence, they’re suggesting that the damage is done, the investments are made, so they need to somehow generate a return on those investments before Trump pulls the plug on the mandates.

A report by Brady Knox over at Washington Examiner, commenting on a NY Times article, suggests car companies may ask President Trump to keep Joe Biden’s rules in place for now:

According to a report from the New York Times, the Biden administration’s actions to boost domestic EV manufacturing may have already set the auto industry past the point of no return. Following Biden’s initiatives, automakers have already invested billions of dollars in transitioning to electric vehicles. If Trump were to scrap the initiative, major automakers fear they could be undercut by smaller manufacturers producing cheaper, internal combustion engine cars.

Three of the country’s largest automakers, Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis, are already lobbying Trump against scrapping the rules.

Some had hoped that one of the biggest proponents of electric cars, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, would be able to sway Trump to keep those rules in place, but now, his priorities seem to be cutting regulations. He expressed opposition to the $7,500 tax credit for buyers of electric cars, saying he opposes all subsidies.

“In my view, we should end all government subsidies, including those for E.V.’s, oil and gas,” Musk said last week.

Musk’s calculation was more cynical in a July earnings call, speculating that the end of the subsidy would hurt Tesla somewhat, but hurt its competitors much more.

Is it worth keeping the mandates so the big three U.S. automakers can prevent smaller competitors from eating their lunch?

Nope, Not Worth It

As horrible as the situation is for major U.S. automakers, keeping the mandates in place would be far worse. Americans need relief far more than automakers right now. Getting the price of vehicles down to a manageable level is crucial if America is going to have any chance of recovering from the financial decimation we’ve felt for the last four years.

But there’s actually a good business reason for pulling the mandates immediately. The Biden-Harris regime forced automakers to try to usher in a future that was too far off, but that doesn’t mean OPTIONAL electric vehicle adoption isn’t part of the future.

The damage has been done by the mandates, but there have also been significant investments into research and development that can flourish if they’re allowed to transition without government interference. In other words, they can return to internal combustion engines as the primary driver for now to get their revenues back while reducing costs for American consumers. Simultaneously, they’ll be expanding on what they’ve built in EV infrastructure, albeit without mandates forcing the issue. They’ll be able to work at the speed of the market instead of the mandates.

It’s a sour consolation for the biggest automakers because it means they’ll have to wait years or even decades to realize benefits from their electric vehicle investments, but the long-term returns should be worth the wait… if they can survive long enough to see them.

Rather than using the current rules to stifle competition, they should hope that President Trump immediately sides with the free market and the consumers to allow enough short-term benefit for U.S. automakers to recover.

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Government’s Divisive Racial Categories in Census Should Put Conservatives on Notice https://americanconservativemovement.com/governments-divisive-racial-categories-in-census-should-put-conservatives-on-notice/ https://americanconservativemovement.com/governments-divisive-racial-categories-in-census-should-put-conservatives-on-notice/#respond Tue, 14 Feb 2023 17:31:03 +0000 https://americanconservativemovement.com/?p=190346 Conservatives haven’t been as interested as progressives are in capturing the federal bureaucracy, or at least they’ve been much less successful. That goes double for the Census Bureau, whose committee on race long has been the plaything of sociology professors and affinity groups.

For this reason, rank-and-file conservatives may not grasp the importance of the racial changes being proposed by the Census Bureau. That would be a mistake. The Left really cares about the census, which means conservatives should pay attention.

The balkanization of the United States, often along government-fabricated racial and ethnic lines, is one of the building blocks of the cultural Marxist threats in this country. The Census Bureau’s new proposal expands and deepens this racial dispensation.

That’s why I wrote a comment last week to the Office of Management and Budget on the proposals from the Federal Interagency Technical Working Group on Race and Ethnicity Standards. The comment can be found here .

Conservatives—indeed, Americans of all stripes—should read what the Census Bureau proposes to do, then read my comment, and add a comment of their own, which they can do here.

Once you get through the bureaucratic gobbledygook (which must be intended by some in the permanent administrative state to confuse the citizenry), you find that what the proposals do is create one more racial category—this one for Americans originating in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)—and effectively turn an earlier OMB-crafted umbrella ethnic group, “Hispanics,” into its own racial category.

In my comment, I strongly recommend against adoption of these changes. The government’s creation of yet one more minority group out of a population now classified as white would be a monumental mistake. Likewise, “Hispanic” is a government label for people from many races. It is not its own race.

What we really should be doing is scrapping our current racial categorizations altogether.

“Your proposal itself admits the political and non-scientific nature of such categorizing,” I tell the Census Bureau’s Working Group in my comment. Then I quote the proposal, which says: “The categories developed represent a sociopolitical construct designed to be used in the self-reported or observed collection of data on the race and ethnicity of major broad population groups in this country and are not biologically or genetically based.”

“This is indeed a ‘sociopolitical construct’,” I say in my comment, “one that was devised by only one political side, i.e., activists on the Left, in the 1960s and 1970s, as has been amply demonstrated, and then foisted on an unsuspecting nation for the first time in 1977 through OMB’s Statistical Policy Directive No. 15, Standards for Maintaining, Collecting and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity (SPD 15).”

“The American people have never voted on whether they preferred to be so categorized,” I add.

Not that the current National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic, and Other Populations would necessarily care. Many of its 27 members hail from organizations on the progressive side of the spectrum, such as the Urban Institutethe Annie E. Casey FoundationEmpowering Pacific Islander Communities, and the Alaska Federation of Natives.

And this is actually an improvement from five years ago, when four of the National Advisory Committee’s seats were held by so-called partner organizations from the identitarian Left—Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC), the Mexican–American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF), the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO), and the National Urban League.

The Left’s role in racial categorization is by design and goes back to the creation of such national advisory committees in the 1970s and 1980s, when militants on the Left forced OMB to create these umbrella categories and officialize them through the Census Bureau.

Since then, America has become what sociologist Alice Robbin dubs “an interest group society.” Ethnic affinity groups deeply entrenched in the Census Bureau, she adds, become “influential beyond their numbers in the public policy process, as well as in influencing administrative policy regarding rules for statistical and administrative data collection and reporting.”

Robbin, not a conservative, described the process in this manner: “Federal statistics have created a similarity of identity where none existed, as with ‘Latino’ identity based on shared language rather than culture, and as with an ‘Asian’ identity based on shared discrimination and ethnic stereotyping.”

Do conservatives, now finally waking up to the threat of wokeness, want more of this?

In my comment to the Office of Management and Budget, I tell the working group that “the proposal engages in circular reasoning when it says that ‘federal race and ethnicity standards are inherently complex because they seek to capture dynamic and fluid sociopolitical constructs.’ The federal government cannot be striving to catch up to realities that it has itself created. Once again, these ‘sociopolitical constructs’ were engineered by the government itself.”

The Census Bureau’s proposal states that these actions “do not identify or designate certain population groups as ‘minority groups.’ Additionally, the standards state that these categories are not to be used for determining the eligibility of population groups for participation in any federal programs.”

This is either hypocrisy or ignorance. These standards are used by government at all levels, as well as the private sector, to hand out benefits.

The first executive order that President Joe Biden signed after taking office, on Jan. 20, 2021, the Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government, put his administration on a path toward race-based policies, all based on the census categories.

Still not interested, conservatives?

Article cross-posted from the Washington Examiner.

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Washington Examiner Posts Veiled Hit Piece Against Kari Lake https://americanconservativemovement.com/washington-examiner-posts-veiled-hit-peace-against-kari-lake/ https://americanconservativemovement.com/washington-examiner-posts-veiled-hit-peace-against-kari-lake/#comments Sun, 16 Oct 2022 03:13:33 +0000 https://americanconservativemovement.com/?p=183407 Days after the 2020 election was stolen, the editorial board at the Washington Examiner posted their first call for conservatives to “move on” and accept the results of the election despite clear evidence that there were abnormalities. Those “abnormalities” turned into mountains of evidence over time, but the same editorial board did not change their tune.

It was then that I realized the “right-leaning” news outlet was no better than many at Fox News or any of the other corporate media shills who support RINOs and Never-Trumpers instead of conservatives or populists. This is important for America First patriots to know because it’s easy to not realize we’re reading McConnellesque propaganda.

The latest attack on an America First patriot is disguised as a news story that initially looks like it’s painting Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake in a positive light. Titled, “MAGA’s next megastar: Dems reportedly concerned Kari Lake could shatter 2024 dreams,” it drew me in even as I knew they likely weren’t going to be endorsing the staunch conservative candidate. It started off fine, but by paragraph two, it was clear that their labels of her as an “election denier” and an “Ultra-MAGA” candidate were intended as pejoratives. They then proceeded to reinforce this notion by filling the article with quotes and perspectives from Democrats, including Lake’s opponent, Katie Hobbs.

Conspicuously, there are ZERO quotes from Kari Lake or anyone at her campaign, nor any of the patriots who support her. All of the quotes are from those opposed to her. They even took a swipe at Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, who also happens to be an “election denier” and “Ultra MAGA.”

On the surface, this doesn’t appear to be a hit piece. But as experienced propagandists are well aware, the conscious and subconscious takeaways from a “news” report can be shifted in one direction or another based on how it’s crafted. This one is masterfully done to subtly disparage Lake while making her opponent and critics sound reasonable. All they have to do is highlight a quote or fact that sounds acceptable to the reader or listener, then subsequent quotes are digested as reliable.

In this case, the story’s first quote came from Obama disciple David Axelrod.

“If you get a candidate who has the performance skills of a major-market local TV anchor and the philosophy and thinking of Steve Bannon, that’s a potent and dangerous combination. … Look at Italy,” he said.

To America First patriots, the statement doesn’t have a negative impact. But to lukewarm conservatives or Republicans who are not ideologically aligned with Steve Bannon or the next Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, that single line can turn those voters and potential supporters off. That was the intention of leading with Axelrod’s quote.

Later, the article quotes Hobbs and, as noted, did not allow Lake to retort. Here’s the first of three long quotes from Hobbs with the intended takeaway emphasized.

“How do you debate someone who refuses to accept the truth, who doesn’t live in facts, and it doesn’t do any service to the voters in terms of deciding, looking at the contrast between us and how we’re going to govern if all she’s going to is shout over me, interrupt me, and spew lies?” she said on MSNBC this week.

This story has been the top headline over at the Washington Examiner from Saturday morning until at least evening. It may be the best example of how to post a hit piece without letting people, including the Lake team, know that it’s a hit piece. It’s manipulative and disingenuous, filled with all of the negative opinions they want voters to have about Lake while never getting a single perspective from a Lake supporter or Lake herself.

Even the headline is intended to draw in Lake supporters or potential supporters who hope to see why Lake would make a good leader. They included a click-bait insinuation about 2024 knowing many have seen her as a potential running mate for Donald Trump. Laughably, the article doesn’t even mention 2024. Once they got you to click through on an insinuated promise, they had no intention of actually talking about the point their readers wanted to see. That’s not just click-bait. It’s a way to get readers to go all the way through the article to the end.

To be clear, there are several writers over at the Washington Examiner that I like and respect. They’re not all RINO shills. But just as Fox News has Tucker Carlson, they also have Brett Baier. They also have a whole lot of people at the top of the food chain who hate Donald Trump. They likely also hate Kari Lake because she supports Donald Trump and represents the type of leadership Arizona and America needs.

America First patriots must practice as much discernment as possible when dealing with RINO shill publications. It’s easy to see the blatant hatred toward conservatives at CNN, NY Times, and other leftist outlets. But the so-called “right-leaning” corporate media outlets will give fodder to conservatives by posting a pro-life story or an anti-CRT rant, right next to those stories will be a puff piece about Mike Pence or Doug Ducey. Be warned.

FYI, this is why we’re launching Discern.tv very soon.

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RINO NeverTrump Liz Cheney and Establishment Shills Washington Examiner Still Think Hitting Trump Is a Way to Woo Wyoming Voters https://americanconservativemovement.com/rino-nevertrump-liz-cheney-and-establishment-shills-washington-examiner-still-think-hitting-trump-is-a-way-to-woo-wyoming-voters/ https://americanconservativemovement.com/rino-nevertrump-liz-cheney-and-establishment-shills-washington-examiner-still-think-hitting-trump-is-a-way-to-woo-wyoming-voters/#respond Sun, 03 Jul 2022 14:15:56 +0000 https://americanconservativemovement.com/?p=174873 As hard as it is for our readers to believe, there are still some NeverTrump holdovers who view (or at least pretend to view) Donald Trump as a bad president while completely ignoring the dumpster fire with the regime they helped to “elect” in 2020. Among them are RINO Congresswoman Liz Cheney and “right-leaning” GOP Establishment propagandists Washington Examiner.

The January 6 Committee has been leading the charge to prevent Trump from running in 2024 while the Examiner has cheered them on, going so far as to try to establish credibility for thoroughly debunked J6 witness, Cassidy Hutchinson.

Now, Cheney and her media shills are highlighting their opinion that the GOP will fall apart if Trump is nominated. From the Examiner:

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) issued a dire warning to the Republican Party if it rallies behind former President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

“It can’t survive if he’s our nominee,” Cheney said on ABC News’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

Cheney is helping lead a summer slate of hearings held by the Jan. 6 committee, which is working to tie Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the Capitol riot. The congresswoman said millions of people have been “betrayed” by Trump and his claims of election fraud, which have been roundly rejected by election officials and the courts.

Cheney is in a hot battle to retain her seat with primary challengers, most notably Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman. She seems to be doubling down on attacking Trump in order to try to convince voters they were wrong about him. They overwhelmingly supported him in both 2016 and 2020 and seem poised to support his endorsed candidate in the August primary as well.

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