RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/05/wicked_witch_of_the_woke_nina_jankowicz_resigns_as_disinformation_governance_board_is_put_on_pause.html

Just when I thought the Biden administration was beyond shame, they (at least temporarily) pulled the plug on the Disinformation Governance Board, causing the buffoonish Nina Jankowicz to resign. I can’t recall a speedier and more embarrassing belly flop of a government initiative than the announcement of this transparently Orwellian state organ headed by cringeworthy exhibitionist besotted with her own musical talent and purported wisdom.

The astonishing lack of forethought in choosing Jankowicz as the arbiter of truth, when she is on the record affirming that Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation (even the Washington Post and New York Times have given up the ghost on that fraud) betrays an administration with no leadership at all. As the old saying goes, “A’s hire A’s; B’s hire C’s,” and when you have a D at the top, they really have the scrape the bottom of the barrel to find subordinates that do not threaten the apex of the authority structure.

Naturally, the news of the “pause” and of Jankowicz’s departure were leaked to none other than Taylor Lorenz of the Washington Post, another left winger crybully with no self-awareness, a classic mean girl who outs the identity of anonymous internet posters but who self-righteously denounces any inquiry into her own transgressions. Lorenz’s Washington Post article is behind a paywall, but the Ace of Spades and Robby Soave of Reason have delightful takedowns of its utter fatuousness. It is as ludicrous as Jankowicz, whihc s saying a lot.

 The question that immediately concerns me is whether the “pause” is merely a face-saving way to shut it down without admitting the a swift death, or whether it is itself a matter of disinformation, intended to lull critics into the assumption that it is gone for good, only to awaken in some new, less Orwellian guise with a less comical head. Lorenz tweets out a statement from DHS that suggest it may be reborn after a decent interval of 75 days as “experts” cogitate.

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/05/19/economic-optimism-has-collapsed-under-build-back-better-biden-tipp-poll/

Last week, President Joe Biden gave a speech about the economy, saying that “as I go across the country, our economy has gone from being on the mend to on the move.” What country is Biden talking about, exactly? Because here in the U.S., the economy went from booming under President Donald Trump to disaster under Biden. 

The latest evidence of Biden’s detachment from reality comes from the IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism Index, which plunged 9.5% in May, dropping down to 41.2 (anything under 50 signals pessimism).  

That puts it below the Index’s worst reading during the height of the COVID pandemic, when it bottomed out at 44 in July 2020. By the time Biden took office, it had rebounded and was back above 50, where the Index had been during the entirety of the Trump administration. 

The IBD/TIPP Financial Stress Index, meanwhile, has shot up to 69.3 (anything above 50 indicates high stress), roughly where it was during the 2008 financial crisis. It has climbed 22% on Biden’s watch. 

For Biden to say the economy “is on the move” is truly delirious. GDP was down 1.4% in the first quarter, and nearly half of adults think we are already in a recession, the IBD/TIPP poll found. 

Biden also bragged about how the economy created “8.3 million jobs in my first 15 months in office – a record.”  

Big deal. 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/overdose-rates-are-rising-fast-cdc-drugs-opiod-crisis-substance-abuse-addiction-fatal-syringe-11652904604?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

The latest tally of fatal drug overdoses from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows nearly 108,000 fatalities in 2021. This is far more than in 2017, when President Trump declared drug deaths a public-health emergency. Among blacks, the drug mortality rate has quadrupled in less than eight years.

The Trump administration acted aggressively and directed agencies to implement several recommendations from the Commission on Combatting Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis. These included changes to prescribing patterns, treatment paradigms and law-enforcement procedures. The rate of deaths from drug overdoses slowed and then dipped. But then Covid hit, with all its mental-health consequences. The addiction and overdose crisis is now the most important public-health issue facing the country.

Apart from asking Congress for more money, the Biden administration hasn’t focused on this crisis. President Biden’s most recent budget pays scant attention to it, while his National Drug Control Strategy provides resources, such as clean syringe programs, that aren’t coupled with strategies to help patients beat their addictions.

Most of the additional fatal overdoses post-Covid involve methamphetamine and fentanyl made in Mexico, China and India. For each overdose death, more than 100 people struggle with debilitating addictions to these dangerous substances.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chicken-wings-34-pent-inflation-140006054.html

(Bloomberg) — With a gallon of milk up about 25% since before the pandemic, and retail bacon 35% higher, it’s hard to imagine how US food inflation could get any worse. But evidence suggests that even higher prices are on the horizon.

Consumers have actually been shielded so far from the full brunt of soaring expenses that are facing producers, distributors and small businesses like restaurants. But they can only hold back for so much longer.

Take the case of Jeff Good, who co-founded three restaurants in Jackson, Mississippi. Around 18 months ago, a 40-pound box of chicken wings cost him about $85. Now, it can go as high as roughly $150. Expenses for cooking oil and flour have nearly doubled in the past five months, he said. But it’s not just ingredient prices going up. He’s paying more for labor and services, too. Even the company that maintains his air conditioners has tacked on a $40 fuel charge per visit. To cope, he’s raised menu prices.

A 15-piece order of chicken wings, a signature dish at his Sal and Mookie’s pizzeria, went for $13.95 before Covid hit. Now, wing costs can vary so much they’re labeled at “market price,” like some restaurants do with lobster. At peaks, the menu price can be be about $27.95 — but that represents a barely-there margin — and Good estimates the “real cost” is closer to about $34. He’s trying to decide whether to keep raising prices or take wings off the menu.

“We have never, ever seen anything like what we’re seeing right now,” said Good, who opened his restaurants nearly 30 years ago.

The difference between prices received by producers for their goods and those paid by everyday customers at cash registers can be seen by comparing the producer and consumer price indices.

he CPI, a benchmark for gauging inflation cited in headlines and by economists, has been surging. Consumer prices for food rose 9.4% in April compared with a year earlier, the biggest gain since 1981, government data showed this month. There were record increases for chicken, fresh seafood and baby food.