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July 2020

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U.S. Consumer Confidence Posts Biggest Increase Since Late 2011 By Olivia Rockeman

By on July 1st, 2020

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-30/u-s-consumer-confidence-posts-biggest-increase-since-late-2011

U.S. consumer confidence rose in June by more than forecast as optimism increased amid business reopenings, though sentiment remained well below pre-pandemic levels.

The Conference Board’s index jumped by 12.2 points to 98.1, the biggest one-month gain since late 2011, according to a report Tuesday. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists had called for a reading of 91.5.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Lopsided Joe Biden Edward Cline

By on July 1st, 2020

https://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/2020/06/lopsided-joe-biden.html

Biden wants to convert the country, once a free one, into a nation of mask-wearing lepers. The Hollywood Reporter writes:

Soon-to-be Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said he would use his power to require Americans to wear face masks in public.

According to KDKA, Biden said:

“I would go back to making sure that everybody had masks, that you had PPE lined up, making sure we stockpile all the things that we need and we don’t have now. The one thing we do know, these masks make a gigantic difference. I would insist that everybody in public be wearing that mask. Anyone to reopen, it would have to make sure that they walked into a business that had masks.”

The difference is imaginary and specious, as I’ve written before.

Ken Rice of KDKA asked Biden if he could use his federal leverage to mandate it in which Biden responded “yes”.

Rice then pressed Biden if he would use it.

Here’s the exchange:

Rice: Would you?

Biden: Yes, I would from an executive standpoint, yes I would.

Victor David Hanson, on Ruth King, explains Biden’s state of mind better than I can:

“Joe Biden is tragically suffering a mental eclipse and sliding away at a geometric rate. Understandably, his handlers have kept him out of sight. He stays off the campaign trail on the pretext of the virus and his age-related susceptibility to COVID-19 morbidity.

“I say “pretext” without apology. Quarantine should not have otherwise stopped Biden over the past three months from doing daily interviews, speeches, and meetings. But each occasion, however scripted, rehearsed, and canned, would only have offered further daily proof that Biden is cognitively unable to be president or indeed to hold any office.

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China Swallows Hong Kong By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on July 1st, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/china-swallows-hong-kong/

The Chinese Communist Party, through what it portrays as its legislature (the “National People’s Congress”), has enacted a law crushing democracy in Hong Kong.

Under the guise of protecting “national security,” the new law criminalizes as “subversion” and “terrorism” various expressions of protest and political dissent. It further endeavors to cut off Hong Kong’s support lines by criminalizing, as conspiracy to endanger national security, sundry exchanges with other countries and outside groups.

The people of Hong Kong have been protesting against Beijing’s increasingly overt repression for over a year. President Trump, however, has prized what he claims is a strong personal relationship with China’s CCP strongman, Xi Xinping; he has thus been reluctant to pressure Beijing or lend rhetorical support to democracy activists — in stark contrast to President Reagan’s support for the anti-Communist democracy movement in Poland.

More recently though, with Beijing’s cover-up of the origins and seriousness of the novel coronavirus having contributed mightily to a deep U.S. economic downturn and the wounding of his reelection bid, the president has reversed course. “China claims it is protecting national security, but the truth is that Hong Kong was secure and prosperous as a free society,” he recently asserted. “Beijing’s decision reverses all of that.”

The Trump administration has indicated that some sanctions would be imposed on some Chinese officials responsible for strangling Hong Kong, though not on Xi. It has further vowed to revoke Hong Kong’s preferential customs and trade status — a move that makes sense if Hong Kong is now like any other Chinese city, but that will hurt Hong Kong more than it does China. All in all, however, the U.S. has done nothing with much bite, certainly nothing that has dissuaded Xi from his course.

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