RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/4878880-recession-october-surprise-election

Could a recession be the October surprise that changes the election outlook?  

It would be bad news for Kamala Harris. The economy, as always, is the top issue for voters, and a further jump in unemployment, which has already bounced up to 4.2 percent from 3.7 percent this year, would not help her chances of winning.  

It would certainly be a surprise, because investors and economists today are almost unanimous believing we are in for a “soft landing.” The betting is that the Federal Reserve will manage to bring interest rates down and continue the push to reduce inflation, all while avoiding a recession.

The problem is that that has almost never happened. 

Even ISI Evercore’s Ed Hyman, who has been warning of a downturn for more than a year, has thrown in the towel. Over the last couple of years, Hyman has been on the lookout for a recession, citing an inverted yield curve, declining leading indicators and, of course, rising interest rates.   

Hyman has been ranked the No.1 economist by Wall Street for 43 of the last 48 years. He has earned that astonishing distinction by being right more than wrong, and also by responding to incoming data by updating his forecasts. That is what he is doing now, and he is doing so reluctantly. 

Hyman recently wrote to clients: “History and experience say to stick with a hard landing outlook. However, the hard math that our team has reviewed says flip to a soft landing outlook.” But he doesn’t sound entirely convinced: “To say this is a difficult decision is an understatement. It feels like a bold moment to go soft landing.” 

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/kamala-harris-spits-up-word-salad-all-over-her-lapels/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=blog-post&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=top-bar-latest&utm_term=second

EXCERPT THANKS TO  JEFFREY BLEHAR

TAFF: At the debate the other night you talked about creating an “opportunity economy” — what if we can drill down on that a little bit. When you talk about bringing down prices and making life more affordable for people, what are one or two specific things you have in mind for that?

HARRIS: Well I’ll start with this. I grew up a middle-class kid. My mother raised my sister and me, she worked very hard. Um, she was able to finally save up enough money to buy our first house when I was a teenager. I grew up in a community of hardworking people, construction workers, and nurses and teachers, and I try to explain to some people who may not have had the same experience, you know, if, but, a lot of people will relate to this, you know I grew up in a neighborhood of folks who were very proud of their lawn. [smiles and nods with hands upheld] You know? And, um, and I was raised to believe and to know that all people deserve dignity. And that we as Americans have a beautiful character. You know, we have ambitions and aspirations and dreams. But not everyone necessarily has access to the resources that can help them fuel those dreams and ambitions. So when I talk about building an opportunity economy, it is very much with the mind of investing in the ambitions and aspirations and the incredible work ethic of the American people, and creating opportunity for people, for example, to start a small business. Um, my mother, you know, worked long hours, and our neighbor helped raise us. We used to call her, it was, I still call her, our “second mother.” She was a small business owner. I love our small business owners, I learned who they are through my childhood, and she was a community leader, she hired locally, she mentored, our small businesses are so much a part of the fabric of our communities, not to mention, really, I think the backbone of America’s economy.

https://amgreatness.com/2024/09/15/tim-walz-maos-missionary/

According to one of his students, during their 1995 trip to China, vice presidential candidate Tim Walz sought out copies of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book to give to American friends.

Anyone who, in 1995—two decades after the Great Helmsman’s death and the truth about his unconscionable tyranny over the Chinese people had become widely known—wanted to pass on copies of the Little Red Book is not intellectually fit to execute the office of vice president under the Constitution of the United States.

For those who did not live through Mao’s Cultural Revolution or who don’t remember his Little Red Book, let me fill you in.

I have a first edition of the Little Red Book from 1966 with Lin Biao’s introduction, purchased in Hong Kong. The book contains quotations from Chairman Mao’s many writings. The small book of 311 pages, each 3X5 inches, had a plastic red cover. Millions were printed and handed out. The purpose of the book was to indoctrinate all Chinese with correct Maoist thinking, to make them “Red,” as the saying was, in mind, heart, and spirit, dependent on the Chairman and his Chinese Communist Party as their thought leader.

As Lin Biao wrote in his introduction to the Little Red Book (before he turned against Mao and died when his airplane was shot out of the sky as he was trying to escape to Russia): “The most fundamental task … is at all times to hold high the great red banner of Mao Zedong thought and to arm the minds of the people throughout the country with it.”

https://amgreatness.com/2024/09/16/an-anatomy-of-the-post-debate-detritus/

While Harris initially appeared to win the September 2024 presidential debate by sticking to prepped strategy and benefiting from biased moderation, she’s failed to gain a lasting boost in the polls.

After the September 10, 2024, presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, the Harris campaign became giddy.

And why not?

Pre-debate conventional wisdom had assured the country that underdog Harris would shock the nation with her endless wash/rinse/spin word salads of repeated phrases and memorized sound bites.

She supposedly would prove as shaky as Trump—the veteran of several presidential debates—would prove merciless in eviscerating her.

That did not happen. Post-debate polls of the first 24 hours showed clearly that the public felt Harris had won.

Why?

She stuck religiously to her pre-debate prep. It was not difficult to anticipate what her tripartite script would be. Joe Biden’s failed debate with Trump offered a model, along with the need to avoid Harris’s own known linguistic and cognitive liabilities:

One, Harris was told to bait the touchy Trump with smears and slights about his failed rallies, his racism, and his shaky businesses. That way she could trigger him to lose his cool, go off-topic, rant, and turn off viewers.

And he did just that and often. Trump clearly did not prepare detailed answers, was not ready to be insulted, and was not reminded to relax—and smile, joke, and in Reaganesque fashion sluff off her certain slurs.

Two, she was not supposed to try thinking on her feet, no matter what the question asked.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/15/joe-biden-economy-legacy-harris-00179194

Joe Biden is determined to use the waning days of his political career to overcome public skepticism and defend his economic record — both for his sake and for Kamala Harris.

The president is putting together a national campaign to persuade voters who have so far resisted his efforts to argue that his administration achieved what will one day be viewed as major economic progress, even if most voters don’t believe it because of the huge spike in prices that followed the pandemic.

He needs it for his legacy. Harris needs it to have one.

“These are epochal, economy-changing, history changing accomplishments — and instead, everybody is talking about the price of eggs,” said one adviser to the White House, granted anonymity to speak candidly on the challenge facing Biden. “It’s all personal. Every bit of it is personal.”

In swing-state speeches, White House events and a social media push, Biden plans to cast the last four years as a turning point that altered the U.S.’s trajectory and expanded benefits for a generation of voters — even if, to Biden’s frustration, most say they don’t yet feel it.

The multi-state travel in coming weeks — a mix of official and campaign events — aims to show off neighborhoods and communities where Biden believes his policies are finally making a measurable difference, while doubling as a supplement to Harris’ own stretch run to November.

The decision to spend much of Biden’s final months on his economic record reflects a bid to finally solve the paradox that’s long challenged the White House and undercut the president’s popularity: The working-class voters Biden crafted his agenda to help the most have been among the hardest to convince of its benefits.

Biden’s challenge in achieving short-term political credit isn’t helped by his unusual position as a first-term president relegated to a supporting role in a campaign that hinges on convincing voters his vice president will take the country in a new direction.

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/09/16/when-kamala-actually-said-something/

Presidential candidate Kamala Harris sat down for an interview late last week. It was the equivalent of a Friday news dump, done when most of the country was to busy otherwise to pay attention. But it did serve a purpose: Her campaign can say she’s done a solo interview, even if she, as is her practice, said nothing of substance.

The interview was with Brian Taff, news anchor at ABC’s Philadelphia affiliate. He asked five questions and the exclusive affair lasted all of 11 minutes

When the vice president asked if she had “one or two specific things” in mind for “bringing down prices and making life more affordable for people,” she came up entirely empty. For more than three painful minutes she droned on about growing up as a middle-class kid, her mother saving enough to buy their first house when she was a teenager, being raised in a hard-working neighborhood where people were “very proud of their lawn.” She never provided anything that even remotely resembled a policy proposal to tame inflation.

That was the first question. From there, the interview deteriorated further. Anyone who wants to see for themselves can watch here. But be warned: It’s overflowing with meaningless jabber, a too-practiced performance, let-me-lecture-you hand gestures – and obvious lies about her positions.

Millions have now watched the interview. If any of them vote for Harris in November, they are either hopeless ideologues or they have even less intellectual firepower than she does. If it’s not clear by now that she is an empty head who will be nothing more than the face of the Democratic Party’s oligarchy that is constantly chasing one-party rule in this country, it never will be to some Americans. That’s a sad indictment of who we’ve become.

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2024/09/14/kamalas-first-solo-interview-was-a-total-train-wreck-n4932514

On Friday, Kamala Harris finally gave her first solo interview since Joe Biden was forced out of the presidential race. It’s hard to believe it took her nearly two months finally do an interview on her own.

And yet, the interview proved exactly why she hasn’t.

Taking a page out of Barack Obama’s playbook, Kamala didn’t do an interview with a major news network, but with an ABC News affiliate in Philadelphia. Barack Obama employed this strategy in order to have more leverage over the terms of the interview, and it seems the Obama people who have joined her campaign have advised her to do the same.

So, obviously, you know that she was given a bunch of softball questions from reporter Brian Taft, and yet the short interview was a complete trainwreck.

“Talk about bringing down prices and making life more affordable for people,” Taff began. “What are one or two specific things you have in mind for that?”

“Well, I’ll start with this,” she said. “I grew up a middle-class kid. My mother raised my sister and me. She worked very hard. She was able to finally save up enough money to buy our first house when I was a teenager. I grew up in a community of hardworking people. You know, construction workers and nurses and teachers. I try to explain to some people who might not have had the same experience, but a lot of people will relate to this.”

We heard a version of this at the debate. Remember that? She sure has her lines memorized. Did she answer the question? Nope. But, wait, she wasn’t done.

You know, I grew up in a neighborhood of people who were really proud of their lawn, you know, and I was raised to believe and to know that all people deserve dignity and that we as Americans have a beautiful character. You know, we have ambitions and aspirations and dreams, but not everyone necessarily has access to the resources that can help them fuel those dreams and ambitions. So, when I talk about building an opportunity economy, it is very much with the mind of investing in the ambitions and aspirations and the incredible work ethic of the American people and creating opportunity for people, for example, to start a small business.

So, instead of answering the question, she gave us her trademark word salad instead. You literally can’t get an easier question than this. Yet, rather than offer an answer that could have included a couple of policy proposals she just defaulted to the same script she was practicing for a week for the debate.

https://amgreatness.com/2024/09/15/on-truth-and-lie-in-an-extramoral-sense/

Students of Friedrich Nietzsche, or those who consort with such dubious people, will recognize the source of my title. It is the English version of the title Nietzsche employed for his early, unfinished essay Über Wahrheit und Lüge im aussermoralischen Sinne (1873).

The essay made a splash among pampered graduate students who endeavored to relieve the boredom of their humdrum lives with dreams of derring-do. Consider the essay’s opening:

Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of “world history,” but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die.

Cozy, armchair nihilists just love that sort of thing.  They repeat such slogans to themselves while primping before first dates, seldom wondering why there never seems to be a second.

Cosmological angst was not Nietzsche’s only sweetmeat on offer in this essay, though. Even more popular were his epistemological-moral musings.  This is the key passage:

What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions; they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force, coins which have lost their embossing and are now considered as metal and no longer as coins.

In short, says Nietzsche, “to be truthful means to employ the usual metaphors.” From a moral perspective, he concludes, “to tell the truth” is “the duty to lie according to a fixed convention.”

Such observations are like catnip to aspiring relativists. Who knew that Kamala Harris, vice president of the United States, was a deacon in this church of cosmic futility?

Well, I am not sure that Harris herself is a paid-up member of this cynical coven. But her stage managers and stunt doubles certainly are.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/09/there_s_allegedly_an_affidavit_claiming_abc_gave_kamala_the_questions_before_the_debate.html

One of the things that was obvious during the debate was that Kamala came in with a lot of memorized material. Those who like her were impressed by how well-prepared she was. Those who don’t like her noted that she had to memorize everything because she is incapable of answering substantive questions on the fly—and that her memorized answers were platitudes, canned phrases, and blatant lies. What didn’t occur to those of us who dislike Kamala was that the memorized lines invariably went right to the heart of the questions. Weird, huh?

That perfect alignment of prepared material and questions could, of course, have come about because it was fairly obvious what the moderators would ask. After all, we knew that they would frame the questions to support Kamala and hurt Trump. However, we believed that, after the scandal of Donna Brazile giving Hillary the debate questions in 2016, there was no way that the Democrats would try that cheat again.

It turns out that we might have been a bit naïve.

An X poster named “Black Insurrectionist” (aka @DocNetyoutube) claims to possess an affidavit from an ABC employee exposing ABC for having given Kamala the questions in advance and promising her that the moderators would never attack her but, instead, that they would only attack Trump:

I will be releasing an affidavit from an ABC whistleblower regarding the debate. I have just signed a non-disclosure agreement with the attorney of the whistleblower. The affidavit states how the Harris campaign was given sample question which were essentially the same questions that were given during the debate and separate assurances of fact checking Donald Trump and that she would NOT be fact checked. Accordingly, the affidavit states several other factors that were built into the debate to give Kamala a significant advantage. I have seen and read the affidavit and after the attorney blacks out the name of the whistleblower and other information that could dox the whistleblower, I will release the full affidavit.  I will be releasing the affidavit before the weekend is out.

In a later exchange, Black Insurrectionist implied that the same whistleblower wrote that Kamala’s campaign actually helped draft the questions:

As of now, we have only a promise. However, given the moderators’ disgraceful behavior, the Democrats’ past practice of cheating in debates, and Kamala’s surprisingly on-point debate preparation, it’s not unreasonable to believe that Black Insurrectionist will make good on his promise.

https://www.nysun.com/article/will-kamala-harris-ever-explain-any-of-her-extraordinary-policy-flip-flops
So we’ve been through an entire debate, and Vice President Harris hasn’t explained any of her extraordinary policy flip-flops.

I’m sorry, a person can’t just wake up one morning and abandon their entire worldview without an explanation. I mean, they can try, but no sensible person would take them seriously. Sure, politicians have been calibrating and triangulating their positions since Pericles.

Most have been compelled to explain their ideological evolution — or have the decency to lie about it. None has ever relied on an army of anonymous campaign flacks to erase a lifetime of positions.

Well, not until Ms. Harris.

We all understand Democrats are desperate to shield voters from their candidate’s mind-numbing tautological rhetoric. Who can blame them, right? “Kamala Harris” is an empty vessel to be filled with the aspirations and dreams of gullible partisans. And allowing her to speak extemporaneously in public would kill all the joy, quicky.

These swirling platitudes and nervous laugh, however, don’t suggest that Ms. Harris isn’t bright. They suggest that she has no genuine philosophical or ethical belief system — other than, perhaps, obtaining and using power. Indeed, there’s little chance she will coherently expound on her sudden policy U-turns because they make zero ideological sense.

Let’s remember that Ms. Harris hasn’t merely been tinkering with the top marginal tax rate in her economic plan. She’s on the record championing, often quite passionately and definitively, a bunch of completely harebrained extremism.

“Will you fully endorse the Green New Deal tonight?” an Iowa voter asked Ms. Harris in 2019.

Yes, she answered. Fully.