Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell is up to her old President Trump-blaming, this time on the matter of Harley-Davidson moving some of its manufacturing facilities overseas.  She wrote:

Factory workers and farmers are slowly learning that President Trump's fanatical protectionism – plus Congress's economic absenteeism – has left them painfully unprotected.

That's not what Trump promised them, of course.

A little more than a year ago, Trump invited executives and union representatives from Harley-Davidson to the White House.  There he vowed that the motorcycle manufacturer would flourish under his economic stewardship.

"Thank you, Harley-Davidson, for building things in America," he said.  "And I think you're going to even expand – I know your business is now doing very well and there's a lot of spirit right now in the country that you weren't having so much in the last number of months that you have right now."

This week, Harley-Davidson became among the highest-profile casualties of Trump's escalating trade wars.

It's a diatribe, all right, criticizing Trump for criticizing Harley-Davidson, which announced recently that it would build motorcycles in Europe, and of course jumping all over him for his tariffs on goods from the European Union.

Maybe Rampell and others should mention that Harley-Davidson, in January, long before the tariffs were announced, said they were closing a Kansas City plant.  They said they were moving to New York and Pennsylvania.  They also announced they were building a plant in Thailand but said that was unrelated.

Is she, and other journalists, now going to blame Trump for every company that builds overseas?  How about giving Trump credit for the additional 300,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs that have been credited since Trump took office after Obama and others said manufacturing jobs were lost for good?  Are you going to give Trump credit for every additional manufacturing facility and every additional line of production because of his policies?  I am sure she won't because that just doesn't fit the Democrat talking points.

Tim Primeaux has worked at the Harley-Davidson plant in Kansas City, Missouri, for 17 years.  He was sure he was going to retire from the company.

That all changed when Harley-Davidson told its 800 employees in January that the plant will be closing next year.  Operations will be shifted to the motorcycle manufacturer's facility in York, Pennsylvania.

Harley is also building a new plant in Thailand.

Did I miss Rampell's column giving Trump credit for moving solar panel production to the U.S.?

A week after the Trump administration unveiled tariffs of up to 30% on imports of solar panels, one of China's biggest manufacturers announced that it plans to open a new plant in the U.S.

Did I miss Rampell's column giving credit to Trump for manufacturers' confidence hitting a record high?  Here is a hint: if manufacturing confidence is high, that means jobs, wages, and profits will rise.

The National Assn. of Manufacturers reported that the results of its quarterly NAM Manufacturers' Outlook survey show optimism increased to 93.3% during Q1 2017, a record high in the survey's nearly 20-year history.  The rise corresponds with an increase manufacturing activity, NAM noted, and is based on widely shared confidence that the administration of President Donald Trump will provide relief from government regulations, tax reform, and significant investments in U.S. infrastructure.

NAM is the largest manufacturing association in the United States, and represents more than 14,000 small, midsized, and large manufacturers in every industrial sector, in every state.

The daily collusion by the media with the Democrats to trash Trump is getting old.  Fake news has as much to do with what journalists choose not to report as much as what they choose to report.  Talking points are not a substitute for analysis and actual reporting.