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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

The Biden Recession Has Arrived

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/06/16/bidens-recession-from-risk-to-real/

“Joe Biden let it happen by following the awful advice of his White House advisers and the far-left Clown College he calls a Cabinet, possibly the most inept collection of political ideologues in our nation’s history. And that’s saying a lot.”

No doubt about it, the economic news in recent weeks has been relentlessly negative. Indicator after indicator shows activity plunging sharply in key parts of the economy. Now, a widely followed indicator signals economic growth is likely to be zero in the current quarter, after the first quarter’s “unexpected” 1.4% decline.

Buckle up, looks like we’re entering a recession, folks.

Let’s review just some of the economic carnage of recent days:

The Fed raised interest rates by 3/4 of a percentage point on Wednesday, the largest hike since 1994, as the central bank desperately tries to rein in our near-9% inflation rate.
Mortgage rates surged above 6%, the highest since 2008, a level that is likely to tank home sales and hit consumers’ pocketbooks hard as adjustable-rate mortgages move upward along with interest rates.
Producer prices soared at a 10.8% rate in May, an ominous sign of higher inflation for consumers down the road. That followed last week’s 8.6% yearly CPI number, the highest since 1981.
Retail sales fell 0.3% in May, but jumped 8.1% from a year earlier. A good sign? Hardly. Adjusted for CPI inflation, growth was minus 0.5%.
Small business optimism is its lowest ever, the National Federation of Independent Business said. This is key because small businesses are the No. 1 employer in America, usually first to hire in good times and first to fire in a slump.
“Meanwhile,” AP reports, “the national average price at the pump reached $5.01 per gallon on Tuesday, up from $4.45 a month ago, and surging more than 60% in one year.”
And before Wednesday, when the stock market rallied in relief that the Fed finally recognized the seriousness of the inflation problem, all of the post-Trump stock market gains had been erased.
The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow indicator, a kind of running tab of GDP data, fell to zero on Wednesday. A rule of thumb says two or more quarters of zero or negative growth equals a recession. By that standard, the Biden recession is here.

Biden goes into cloud cuckoo land on inflation By Monica Showalter

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/06/biden_goes_into_cloud_cuckooland_on_inflation.html

“Biden is still blaming oil companies for the ongoing inflation, as if oil companies themselves were not subject to the higher transport, production, labor, and materials costs of taking oil out of the ground, vowing to punish them with “emergency powers” if they don’t pump more oil to increase supply.  He’s begging the Saudis to produce more oil, despite an amazing array of oil resources available in this country, production of which he has largely shut down, as well as the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada.  He’s also reportedly releasing another round of oil from the Strategic Oil Reserve as if the first huge release had had any effect.  It didn’t.  He’s blaming Russian president Vladimir Putin.  He’s blaming the global economy.  He’s blaming Republicans for not approving his latest spend-a-thons.What he’s not doing is addressing inflation itself and the runaway federal spending that created it.  It’s as if he doesn’t know, or thinks you don’t know.”

Joe Biden either is stupid or thinks you’re stupid.

Because how else does anyone explain a speech like this, to the supposed working stiffs of the AFL-CIO Tuesday?

Biden, visibly angry: “I don’t want to hear anymore of these lies about reckless spending. We’re changing people’s lives!” pic.twitter.com/0I3OgmIJGD

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) June 14, 2022

No more lies about reckless spending?  Here’s the whole thing:

WATCH LIVE: President Joe Biden speaks at AFL-CIO convention https://t.co/NGF1mEBc8K

— PBS NewsHour (@NewsHour) June 14, 2022

There’s plenty to dislike about this, from the 1940s proletarian vernacular to the heaping helping of old hokey Irish Catholic gesturing, as if the abortion president were actually Catholic and not a guy who plays one on TV for political benefit.

Liz Peek: Desperate Biden Goes Begging to Saudi Arabia

https://www.nysun.com/article/desperate-biden-goes-begging-to-saudi-arabia

How humiliating. In mid-July, President Biden will travel to Saudi Arabia to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is that nation’s de facto ruler. That’s the same Mr. Biden who, on the campaign trail in 2020, called the oil superpower a “pariah” state and vowed to make sure “America does not check its values at the door to sell arms or buy oil.” 

Unless, apparently, polling suggests he really, really needs the oil. Such are the complications that arise when the president of the United States departs from decades-long relationships rooted in realpolitik and follows a childish urge to abandon every policy of his predecessor, even those that were unquestionably successful.

The lead-up to this planned sit-down has been an embarrassment. In March, MBS, as he is known, and his UAE counterpart, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, refused to take a phone call from Mr. Biden. 

Imagine, the President of the United States sitting by the phone like a pimply teenager pining for that someone special to ring up. (The White House denied this report in the Wall Street Journal, saying that indeed Mr. Biden had spoken by phone with the “king”; that is called a non-denial denial.) 

Why would the UAE and Saudi rulers make Mr. Biden beg? Because the President has gone out of his way since his first week in the Oval Office to insult those two countries and let them know that agreements established under President Trump are null and void. 

Jan 6 committee flouts the rules of Congress, delivers propaganda By David Zukerman

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/06/jan_6_committee_flouts_the_rules_of_congress_delivers_propaganda.html

The Jan. 6 House Select Committee has been marred by officials acting in an arbitrary and capricious manner. The journalistic result is propaganda not fairly and honestly informing the American people on the conduct of this committee and its threat to democratic government

For example,

“[I]t is well established that, when a congressional committee seeks to use the implied authority to compel testimony, it must respect the Separation of Powers; it must do so only in pursuit of a valid legislative purpose (and not for the purpose of generating publicity or pursuing law enforcement) and it must follow the rules associated with the delegation on which its claimed subpoena authority relies.” 

This quote appears at page 4 of the Introduction to the reply brief (Case 1:21-cv-03217-CJN Document 38 Filed 06/06/22) filed by former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in his lawsuit against Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Jan. 6 committee.

The Meadows reply brief opened the Introduction with this statement:

“No authoritative appellate court has ever held that a senior aide to a President, or a President himself, can be compelled by Congress to appear and give testimony, let alone when there is a claim of Executive Privilege.” 

This statement makes clear how breathtaking Speaker Pelosi’s actions have proven to be, willing to dash to pieces the Separation of Powers tradition of our tripartite federal government. 

Joe Biden and the Powerless Presidency Byron York

https://townhall.com/columnists/byronyork/2022/06/15/joe-biden-and-the-powerless-presidency-n2608742

There’s no doubt inflation is the nation’s most pressing concern. All the polls show it. All the data shows it. And everyone just personally knows it.

President Joe Biden will not admit that his policies, and his party’s policies, have made inflation worse — and that, if Biden and congressional Democrats had their way, they would make it worse still. He just can’t say that. Instead, the president’s reaction has been a mixture of denial, finger pointing, ineffective gestures and, perhaps most of all, the argument that he, as president, is virtually powerless to address the nation’s most pressing concern.

“Look, inflation is the bane of our existence,” Biden said when he appeared recently in a sympathetic forum, comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show. Kimmel was so sympathetic that he didn’t even ask Biden about inflation; Biden brought it up himself. But he had little to say. Remember that when Biden published his plan to fight inflation in The Wall Street Journal on May 30, his first measure was not to do anything himself but to let the Federal Reserve do the job. His role as president, Biden said, was not to say anything mean about the Fed.

As for all the other, little stuff Biden is doing in the name of fighting inflation, there are reports that he knows they won’t do any good. On April 12, for example, he went to an ethanol plant in Iowa to claim that alternative fuels lower energy costs. Ethanol is great, Biden said. It supports agriculture, creates good-paying jobs, reduces U.S. reliance on foreign oil and reduces the price of gasoline.

Report: 23 Pro-Life Organizations Vandalized, Firebombed by Pro-Abortion Activists in Recent Weeks: Wendell Husebø

https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2022/06/14/report-23-pro-life-organizations-vandaliz

At least 23 pro-life organizations have reportedly been vandalized in recent weeks.

The pro-life organizations have been either firebombed or vandalized by radical pro-abortion activists, according to Catholic Vote:

Hollywood, FL — South Broward Pregnancy Center and Archdiocese of Miami Respect Life Ministry
Asheville, NC — Mountain Area Pregnancy Services
Manassas, VA — First Care Women’s Health
Alexandria, VA — Concerned Women for America
Reiserstown, MD — Alpha Pregnancy Center
Frederick, MD — BirthRight of Frederick
Frederick, MD — CareNet Frederick
 Reiserstown, MD — Alpha Pregnancy Center
 Buffalo, NY — CompassCare Pregnancy Services
 Madison, WI — Wisconsin Family Action
 Des Moines, IA — Agape Pregnancy Resource Center
 Denton, TX — Woman to Woman Pregnancy Resource Center
 Austin, TX — Trotter House
 Long Beach, CA — His Nesting Place Home for Mothers & Children
 Sebastopol, CA — Pregnancy Center Billboard
 Eugene, OR — Dove Medical Clinic
 Keizer, OR — Oregon Right to Life
 Gresham, OR — Gresham Pregnancy Resource Center
 Portland, OR — Southeast Portland Pregnancy Resource Center
 Vancouver, WA — Options360 Women’s Clinic
 Federal Way, WA — Care Net Pregnancy and Family Services of Puget Sound
 Lynnwood, WA — Next Step Pregnancy Services

The attacks follow a leaked Supreme Court decision that revealed Roe v. Wade may be overturned this month. If overturned, abortion would no longer be protected by the federal government but would still be legal in many states.

Though President Biden campaigned on unity, Biden has not condemned a single one of the attacks, the RNC reported on Monday. Moreover, many establishment television networks refuse to cover the extremism:

Clinton’s Debunked 2016 Russia Hoax Was Far Worse Than What Happened On Jan. 6 By Jordan Boyd

https://thefederalist.com/2022/06/13/clintons-debunked-2016-russia-hoax-was-far-worse-than-what-happened-on-jan-6/

It was Democrats who objected to every Republican-won election this century, in the 2000, 2004, and 2016 elections.

Everyone who bought Hillary Clinton’s prepaid lies about Trump colluding with Russia to steal the presidency she was “born” to win participated in a far more damaging scheme to cast doubt on an election than anyone who ever wondered why “Sleepy Joe” Biden received more than 81 million votes in the 2020 election.

When Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, nearly half of Democrats said they believed the election was rigged. After all, all they had heard for months was that Trump worked with a sworn American enemy to secure a seat in the White House.

This was a patently false lie based on a debunked document bought by Trump’s political enemy and her sleazy legal team. There’s not a shred of evidence from Special Counsel Robert Mueller nor anyone else that Trump worked with Russia to meddle in the 2016 election. As a matter of fact, those who have been legitimately charged, arrested, and put on trial for lying have all been from Clinton’s side.

27 Democrats vs. Supreme Court Protection The House finally adds security, but not without dissenters.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/27-democrats-vs-supreme-court-security-house-congress-nancy-pelosi-brett-kavanaugh-11655242635?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

The House on Tuesday finally passed a bipartisan bill to step up security for Supreme Court Justices and their families, and the embarrassment is that Speaker Nancy Pelosi sat on the measure for weeks, even after a man with a gun showed up at Brett Kavanaugh’s house in the middle of the night. More than two dozen Democrats apparently don’t think the Justices deserve additional protection.

The Supreme Court Police Parity Act passed the Senate unanimously in May. The purpose of the bill is to extend extra security to the families of Justices, consistent with protections offered for senior Members of Congress or executive appointees.

“If the families of Supreme Court Justices have the same profile and exposure as the highest ranking officials in our government, they deserve the same level of protection,” Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons said last month. He’s right.

The Capitol ‘Reconnaissance’ Smear The Jan. 6 committee indulged a false and partisan accusation.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-capitol-reconnaissance-smear-jan-6-committee-barry-loudermilk-mikie-sherrill-11655244928?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

If the Jan. 6 select committee wants to have more bipartisan credibility, how about apologizing to Georgia Rep. Barry Loudermilk ? The Republican was vindicated this week after false accusations that he had provided “reconnaissance” tours for Capitol rioters.

On Jan. 12, 2021, Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill (N.J.) alleged on Facebook that she’d seen “members of Congress who had groups coming through the Capitol that I saw on Jan. 5 for reconnaissance for the next day.” The press piled on.

Asked on MSNBC about reports of GOP “tours to insurrectionists,” New York Rep. Sean Maloney responded: “I can confirm that. I don’t have firsthand knowledge of it but I spoke to a Member who saw it personally and he described it with some alarm.” Mr. Maloney added that the “enemy is within.”

Ms. Sherrill and 33 other House Democrats sent a letter to the Capitol police and House and Senate sergeants at arms demanding an “immediate investigation” into the “suspicious behavior and access given to visitors” on Jan. 5. They said some attackers “seemed to have an unusually detailed knowledge of the layout,” and this became a central feature of the Democratic and media narrative.

Kavanaugh Assassination Plot Draws Muted White House Response By Phil Wegmann

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/06/14/attempted_kavanaugh_assassination_draws_muted_wh_response_147740.html

“House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told RCP in a separate statement, “It’s an outrage that President Biden found the time to appear on a late-night comedy show and predict a ‘mini revolution’ if the Supreme Court doesn’t rule his way on abortion, yet remains silent on the attempted murder of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.”

The would-be assassin had a knife and a gun and, in the end, cold feet: When Nicholas Roske saw the U.S. marshals standing outside the home of Brett Kavanaugh, the 26-year-old Californian called off his plan to kill the Supreme Court justice and phoned the police to turn himself in instead.

It wasn’t just good luck, though, that prevented a tragedy that would have destroyed a family and roiled America’s civic life even further. It was no accident that armed U.S. marshals happened to be in the exact right place at exactly the right time. No, the fact that federal law enforcement were in a position to be “instrumental in this person not accomplishing that horrible deed,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told RealClearPolitics, was due – in no small part – to the diligence of the Biden administration. “One of the reasons” the plot failed was because the Department of Justice took threats against Kavanaugh’s life “very seriously from the beginning.”