RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/06/03/how-the-biden-administration-fumbled-the-inflation-football-and-lost-the-game/
Wasn’t it not even a year ago we were told that inflation would, in fact, be a “good” thing? That it was “transitory”? Not a serious threat. Now we’re finding that the media, Wall Street economists, Fed officials, but most of all, the Biden administration, were all wrong. Does anyone pay a price for gross incompetence anymore?

Last year, headlines were filled with inflation cheerleaders. We searched the term “inflation is good” and got back 508 million hits.

What’s troubling about this expert consensus is that inflation, now at a 40-year-high, isn’t good for anyone.

It skews business and personal decisions, wrecks family budgets, makes millions of low-income families even poorer, destroys personal thrift and wealth, undermines faith in the economy, distorts financial markets, and discourages investment and innovation.

And, eventually, it destroys real economic growth, undermining the very underpinnings of our prosperity and standard of living. We’re on the way to that now.

Which brings us to our main point: The failure of our “experts,” “elites” and elected officials to attack the root causes of inflation, namely runaway government spending and the Fed’s relentless money printing, based on bogus Modern Monetary Theory, that makes the spending possible.

No one in the Biden administration wants to step forward and accept responsibility for the inflation mess. That’s why it looked almost brave as one person finally stepped forward this week to admit there was a miscalculation.

“I think I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer this week, after he asked about her calling inflation a “small risk” just last year.

Good start. But in the next breath, she fobbed off blame on a host of other factors:

“As I mentioned, there have been unanticipated and large shocks to the economy that have boosted energy and food prices and supply bottlenecks that have affected our economy badly that I, at the time, didn’t fully understand, but we recognize that now,” she said.

Excuse us, but the causes of our inflation problem were evident even back in 2021.

The administration was repeatedly warned, as we noted, by some of its own party (hello, Larry Summers) about the inflationary impact of $1.9 trillion in added COVID spending, along with the still-alive proposal to spend another $5 trillion on the foolish pork-barrel “Build Back Better” infrastructure plan.

And Yellen knew about the record surge in the money supply in 2021, a clear indication that our economy was headed for soaring inflation. The Fed helped the government print $14.5 trillion in new money from April 2020 to June of 2021, the biggest money supply surge in the nation’s history. It didn’t boost output that much. Inflation was inevitable.

As Fed chief from 2014 to 2018, Yellen must know that latter point. Too bad she comes from the Keynesian school of economics, which denies such self-evident economic truths.

She, as do so many others, seems to have forgotten or ignored the clear lessons of the 1970s, when soaring spending (a 269% real increase in government spending during the decade), and out-of-control money printing to pay our monthly oil bill from the Mideast, set off scary levels of inflation that peaked at close to 15% in 1980.

We’re in a similar place now. Only, our president doesn’t seem to get it.

This week, he basically admitted he didn’t fully understand the baby formula shortage, which has sent prices for formula spiraling as much as 300% in some markets. “I don’t think anyone anticipated the impact of the shutdown of one facility – the Abbott (Laboratories Inc.) facility,” President Joe Biden told reporters Wednesday.

Except, it was his administration that shut the plant in February due to safety concerns, leading to a formula shortage. And Biden was fully apprised of it in a meeting with manufacturers three months ago.

“We knew from the very beginning this would be a very serious event,” said Robert Cleveland, senior vice president for North American operations of the Reckitt Co., as reported by RealClearPolitics.

And contrary to the idea that inflation’s “good,” news in recent days shows just how wrong that is:

Baby-formula inflation is hitting low-income families hardest.
This week, the USDA warned Americans that eggs, a nutritional staple in many households, may soon cost $1 each.
Meanwhile, a new study by The Center Square says that a quarter of all Americans intend to put off their retirement because of inflation.

“Nearly 60% of those surveyed said that inflation has adversely affected their personal finances, of which about one in four said that they have felt a major impact,” according to the Center Square. “As a result of inflation, 36% of Americans have reduced their savings and 21% have reduced their retirement savings. A quarter of Americans will need to delay their retirement.”

Biden has privately raged at aides about inflation, but only to blame others for the catastrophe caused by his own policies. It’s a disaster that could cost his party control of Congress and him the presidential election in 2024, if he runs again.

As our friend Stephen Moore noted, “In this administration, it’s always someone else’s fault. Inflation is now the No. 1 concern of voters, so the White House first blamed COVID. Then Donald Trump’s tax cuts. Then Vladimir Putin. Then meatpackers and the poultry industry, Big Oil and pharmaceutical companies.”

A report from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School said that inflation cost the average family $3,200 last year. Newer estimates say inflation could cost families as much as $5,200 this year, according to Bloomberg. That’s quite a cut in a family’s standard of living, especially since wages aren’t keeping up with inflation.

All this was foreseeable by our media and our elected leaders. Those who told us inflation would be a “good thing” were wrong as hell. So were those who told us it would be transitory. Don’t worry, none will be fired.

Worst of all, the White House has once again shown why it is now one of the least popular administrations in modern history: It is incapable of acting in the public interest, and responds only to one side of the political spectrum. But political arrogance has a cost, and we’ll likely see that result in this year’s midterm elections.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18583/strength-of-democracy

In the movie Juarez, a 1939 film that dramatized the life of Benito Juarez, Mexico’s “George Washington,” a screen writer drafted words for the freedom fighter that send a message to every democracy today, “If a Monarch misrules; the people change… If a Presidente misrules; the people change the Presidente…” The film debuted on the eve of World War II when 20th Century “monarchy,” — fascism — had installed itself as one of the most destructive and murderous forces the world had ever endured.

In our current era, when a president’s ad-lib remarks have the means to alter world events, when inflation is forcing Americans to choose between paying the rent and putting food on the table, when our allies wonder whether this administration has the courage and stamina to confront an ever more powerful China, one could easily question the future of our nation.

But as the script from Juarez reminds us, the inherent strength of a democracy over a monarchy is that its citizens have the means to peacefully change their leaders if they suffer through failed leadership. One suspects our enemies abroad may be hoping that we will not exercise that right — from the belief that we are distracted by the continuing aftershocks of COVID or seeking to cope with slashed earning power at the gas pump and the supermarket.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/john-durham-vs-the-beltway-swamp-dossier-clinton-fbi-trial-expose-politics-11654207276?mod=opinion_featst_pos1

The Michael Sussmann trial is over, but the stench lingers. Special counsel John Durham did more than expose Hillary Clinton’s dirty political tricks. He exposed the incestuous elite Washington world that enabled those tricks to succeed. America, meet again the Beltway swamp.

Mr. Sussman was acquitted Tuesday of lying to the FBI, but not before the Durham team revealed the Clinton campaign’s work in 2016 to use both the FBI and the media to smear Donald Trump. The campaign relied on outside techies for false accusations of Trump links to Russia’s Alfa Bank, which Mr. Sussmann fed to the FBI. Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele separately funneled their infamous dossier to the Bureau. Then the Clinton team shopped the dirt to the media, using the fact of FBI investigations as proof it deserved coverage.

Still, it’s a long way from unfounded smears to full-fledged FBI investigations. The entire Clinton operation depended on getting the FBI to bite. The Durham trial was a glimpse at the chummy web of brokers who used their access and influence to make that happen.

One trial revelation was that Rodney Joffe —the tech executive who used privileged access to nonproprietary data to create the Alfa claims—was a confidential human source for the FBI in 2016. Yet Mr. Joffe, according to testimony, didn’t take his accusations to his regular handler. He instead gave them to . . . Mr. Sussmann, a lawyer in private practice whose clients included Mrs. Clinton.

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/06/02/unsafe-at-any-speed-electric-cars-keep-catching-fire/

In Vancouver, Canada, in late May, a Tesla Model Y burst into flames while the driver was waiting for a light at an intersection. He had to kick out a window to escape.

Around the same time, a new Tesla burst into flames in Brooklyn, Illinois, and a week before that a Model 3 caught fire in California City, California, while it was parked in a driveway.

In April, a deadly lithium-ion battery fire occurred in a Tesla car crash in Houston.

Last year, a Tesla caught fire while charging overnight in a garage, which the Washington Post described as “one in a string of recent examples showing what can happen when electric cars are left parked in garages to charge overnight” and which promoted electric vehicle (EV) makers to warn “owners not to leave the cars charging unattended in certain circumstances, or sitting fully charged in garages.” (This site keeps tabs on Tesla fires.)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-title-ix-rewrite-is-an-assault-on-womens-rights-schools-protected-speech-education-harassment-11654114281?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

“Out of a single sentence barring discrimination on the basis of sex, the Biden administration is illegally rewriting federal law to erase women and undermine constitutional liberties. Because the scope of the proposed rules is so vast, and its implementation is being managed by bureaucrats behind the scenes, average Americans may not have noticed. They need to wake up.”

Title IX is a simple anti-discrimination mandate that prohibits federally funded educational institutions from discriminating “on the basis of sex.” Yet, without congressional authorization or other constitutional authority, the Biden administration is writing new Title IX rules to socially engineer every aspect of the educational experience—from student speech and school athletics to high-school locker room use and relationships between adult college students.

These draft rules, leaked to the media in dribs and drabs, have been delayed repeatedly to avoid organized backlash. Behind the scenes, the administration is telling educational institutions that the rules are a fait accompli, demanding enforcement that curtails freedom of speech, due process and women’s rights.

Although Title IX makes no mention of sexual harassment or assault, the Supreme Court has held that a school that tolerates sexual misconduct may be found to have violated Title IX. At the same time, the high court has been clear that most speech (including speech about sex roles) does not rise to the level of unlawful sexual harassment.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/attempted-reagan-assassin-john-hinckley-jr-to-be-released-judge-rules/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_

John Hinckley Jr., the man who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan over 41 years ago in 1981, will be fully and unconditionally released from a federal mental-health facility.

At a final hearing on the subject on Wednesday, U.S. Senior District Judge Paul Friedman, a Clinton appointee to the district court for the District of Columbia, said that Hinckley, 67, would be released from the care of Saint Elizabeths Hospital without any preconditions on June 15.

Friedman, who since 2003 has overseen periodic requests from Hinckley for privileges during his confinement, said that “if he hadn’t tried to kill a president, he would have been released unconditionally a long time ago.”

On March 30, 1981, as Reagan was leaving the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., Hinckley drew a .22 caliber revolver and fired at the president as he was entering his limousine. Four of the six explosive rounds he fired struck the president.

Wounded were D.C. police officer Tom Delahanty and U.S. Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy, who placed himself in the line of fire, while Press Secretary James Brady sustained a gunshot to the head, which resulted in lifelong paralysis. The White House Press Briefing Room is named in his honor.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/bidens-inner-trudeau-on-guns-he-seems-to-be-operating-under-the-wrong-constitution/ar-AAXXT89

In our increasingly hateful and divisive politics, there are times when our nation seems incapable of coming together for a common purpose. Tragedies — moments of shared national grieving and mutual support — once were the exception. Yet one of the most chilling aspects of the aftermath of the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, was how the moment of unity was quickly lost to political posturing.

Politicians have long admitted that a crisis is an opportunity not to be missed — the greater the tragedy, the greater the opportunity. After the mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket, New York’s Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) called for censorship to “silence the voices of hatred and racism.” After the Uvalde massacre, some Democrats renewed calls for everything from court packing to ending the Senate filibuster.

The most immediate response, however, was a call for gun bans. Vice President Kamala Harris got out front of the White House by demanding a ban on AR-15s, the most popular weapon in America. Then President Joe Biden created a stir by suggesting he might seek to ban 9mm weapons.

Such calls are not limited to the United States. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that his government is introducing legislation to “implement a national freeze on handgun ownership.” He said Canadians would no longer be able “to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns anywhere in Canada,” adding that “there is no reason anyone in Canada should need guns in their everyday lives.”

The difference between the push in the two countries is the existence of the Second Amendment in the United States — a constitutionally mandated “reason” why Americans are allowed to have guns; they don’t have to prove it to the government.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2022/05/31/concha_pro-clinton_dc_jury_acquitting_sussmann_another_black_eye_for_the_justice_system.html

JOE CONCHA: Well, Donald Trump got 5.4% of the vote in Washington D.C. in 2020. Right? The fact that this jury was going to be sympathetic and friendly to Hillary Clinton’s campaign lawyer, is not surprising, especially when that jury had Clinton donors on it.

I’m telling you, our faith in institutions just took another big hit as a result of this. This is a whole bowl of wrong.

Very frustrating to see, you have a man who peddled a lie to the FBI — a lie that he was going there as a concerned citizen. Then he turns around and bills the Clinton campaign for that visit to his friend James Baker. What else do you need?

This jury was pre-dispositioned to have a not-guilty verdict. Another black eye for the justice system.

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3507723-its-biden-v-inflation-and-bidens-losing/

President Biden wants Americans to know: Curbing inflation is his top, top, top priority.

He recently penned an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal with this headline: “My Plan for Fighting Inflation.” The plan didn’t contain much new in the anti-inflation category, but it did contain a red alert, which may have been the point.

The piece prepared the public for an economic slowdown, the likely result of the Federal Reserve’s commitment to reining in its reckless monetary policy. Biden warns that in coming months “growth will look different” and forecasts that job gains will drop from recent monthly totals of 500,000 or so and head lower, to maybe about 150,000.

This will not be “cause for concern,” Biden writes, “it will be a sign that we are successfully moving into the next phase of recovery…”

The last thing Americans were told not to worry about was inflation, so that advisory gives us pause. It was last July – when the Consumer Price Index came in at 0.9 percent, significantly higher than the prior month’s 0.6 percent price increase – that Biden gave an address celebrating the bang-up job he had done in his first six months in office.

He assured us: “Some folks have raised worries that this could be a sign of persistent inflation. But that’s not our view. Our experts believe and the data shows that most of the price increases we’ve seen are — were expected and expected to be temporary.”