RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2023/04/09/fiddling-america-away/

The last few weeks, the world had been writing off the United States as either crazy or irrelevant as it watches America cannibalize itself. 

Friends tremble at our sudden decline. Enemies rejoice. Neutrals make the necessary adjustments to join the ascendant non-American side.

The symptoms of our decline abroad appear everywhere. The more Joe Biden brags about the crippling oil sanctions on Russia, friends like India and allies like Japan ignore them. And why not, when Biden has no idea how long the war in Ukraine will last, or how much wherewithal the United States can, should, or will give Kyiv, or how its on-to-Red-Square blank check will finally end?

Big Biden talks about more solar and wind farms, and green new deals won’t fill the gas tanks in Munich or heat the homes of Kyoto, or lower the price of imported oil in the United Kingdom. Claiming the Afghanistan mess was a success fools no one.

Allies ask who are our leaders. An impaired Joe Biden who never is quite sure where he is, what he is doing, or whom he is with?

Kamala Harris, whose only interests appear to be demagoguing racial and social tensions with a shrinking vocabulary? 

Senator John Fetterman (D-Penn.), who was elected on the argument it was unkind not to vote for a candidate who was physically and mentally impaired?

Energy Department kingpin Sam Brinton, the cross-dresser in lipstick, now charged with felonies for stealing women’s luggage at airport carousels?

Pete Buttigieg, our transportation secretary, who virtue signals melodramas of the past when he is clueless how to fix crises in the present?

Our Pentagon brass who fixate on saying the correct thing now to ensure the lucrative defense contractor billets later? 

Allies fear that after abandoning billions of dollars in weaponry in Kabul to the terrorist Taliban, and pumping billions of dollars more of arms into the Ukrainian meat grinder, and failing to increase U.S. armaments production, Washington simply does not have the resources to match China in either a looming proxy or head-to-head war.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/04/07/swimmer-riley-gaines-ambushed-assaulted-held-hostage-by-trans-mob-after-speech-at-san-francisco-state-university/

Swimmer Riley Gaines was ambushed, physically assaulted and held hostage for three hours late Thursday by a violent trans-rights mob who disrupted her speech at San Francisco State University about protecting women’s sports.

“I was physically assaulted by one person. I was struck twice, both times hitting my shoulder with the second strike grazing my face,” Gaines told CNN Friday. “The rest of the protestors just ambushed and cornered me before I was able to move out with the help of campus police.”

Gaines is a 12-time All-American champ, and a former competitor of trans swimmer Lia Thomas, a biological male who has taken the sport by storm since he started identifying as a female.

Her appearance at SFSU was booked by a conservative student organization and organized by Turning Point USA. Footage showed Riley being partially drowned out with chants as she was giving her speech. The agitators “rushed in when the event was over,” according to a university Turning Point USA spokesperson.

“Why are you running!” a protester yelped, after Gaines was ambushed. Flanked by university police, she made her way down a hallway.

Another agitator screeched “trans rights are human rights” before jumping in front of her to scream profanities in her face. “Yeah you f—ing transphobic bitch, I f–ing see you!” the unhinged woman bellowed as the distressed guest speaker was hustled away. “The prisoners are running the asylum at SFSU,” Gaines wrote in a video she posted on Twitter. “This is proof that women need sex-protected spaces. Still only further assures me I’m doing something right. When they want you silent, speak louder,” she said.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/04/08/then-and-now/

On Good Friday, I chanced across a photograph of the lower Manhattan skyline at night from Good Friday in April 1956. Three skyscrapers, dominating the space, feature certain windows illuminated to form gigantic crosses to commemorate that most solemn of Christian holidays. The year 1956 was not that long ago. But how much has changed in those 60-odd years! Can you imagine such a public display of Christian affirmation in New York today? Nor can I. 

That was then. Now things are different. 

I thought about that disjunction between then and now when reading through Washington’s Farewell Address this weekend. Washington had intended to withdraw from politics when his first term ended in 1792. He asked James Madison to draft a valedictory statement but, when the time came, bickering among some of his Cabinet, especially between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, convinced him to run again. He set the original document aside. 

But when 1796 rolled around, he was weary and determined to leave politics. He enlisted Hamilton to revise the statement to which he added his own observations. The document is known as Washington’s “Farewell Address,” though Washington did not deliver it orally. Instead, he had it published in Claypoole’s American Daily Advertiser in September 1796, about 10 weeks before the election to choose his successor.

It was widely reprinted and became, in the words of the historian John Avlon, a sort of “civic scripture,” more widely reprinted even than the Declaration of Independence in the early years of the Republic. During the Civil War, both Houses of Congress began to hold annual readings of the document. The House abandoned the practice in 1984. I am told that the Senate continues to this day, selecting a senator (and alternating between parties) to read the document aloud on the Senate floor to commemorate Washington’s birthday. 

Several passages from the Farewell Address have become inscribed on the collective memory of the nation. But what struck me rereading the 6,000-word statement is how much it appears as a period piece, a blast from an apparently unrecoverable past. Anyone who has read the Farewell Address will recall Washington’s stirring warnings against “the fury of party spirit,” foreign entanglements, his cautions against excessive debt, his insistence on the place of religion as the foundation for civic order. The question is: what relevance do such injunctions have in present-day America? 

It pains me to say it, but I suspect the Farewell Address retains but a rhetorical claim on America circa 2023. Then, in 1796, Washington’s exhortations and admonitions had purchase in the political, economic, and moral reality of America. Now, they mostly echo like antique sentimentalities, more or less like the phrase “with liberty and justice for all” in the Pledge of Allegiance. Who still takes that seriously? 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/clarence-thomas-supreme-court-propublica-harlan-crow-1c4c2f41?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

The left’s assault on the Supreme Court is continuing, and the latest front is the news that Justice Clarence Thomas has a rich friend who has hosted the Justice on his private plane, his yacht, and his vacation resort. That’s it. That’s the story. Yet this non-bombshell has triggered breathless claims that the Court must be investigated, and that Justice Thomas must resign or be impeached. Those demands give away the real political game here.*

ProPublica, a left-leaning website, kicked off the fun with a report Thursday that Justice Thomas has a longtime friendship with Harlan Crow, a wealthy Texas real-estate developer. The intrepid reporters roamed far and wide to discover that the Justice has sometimes traveled on Mr. Crow’s “Bombardier Global 5000 jet” and that each summer the Justice and his wife spend a vacation week at Mr. Crow’s place in the Adirondacks.

The piece is loaded with words and phrases intended to convey that this is all somehow disreputable: “superyacht”; “luxury trips”; “exclusive California all-male retreat”; “sprawling ranch”; “private chefs”; “elegant accommodation”; “opulent lodge”; “lavishing the justice with gifts.” And more.

Adjectival overkill is the method of bad polemicists who don’t have much to report. The ProPublica writers suggest that Justice Thomas may have violated ethics rules, and they quote a couple of cherry-picked ethicists to express their dismay.

But it seems clear that the Court’s rules at the time all of this happened did not require that gifts of personal hospitality be disclosed. This includes the private plane trips. ProPublica fails to make clear to readers that the U.S. Judicial Conference recently changed its rules to require more disclosure. The new rules took effect last month.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-man-who-saw-the-economic-crises-coming-paul-singer-banking-signature-svb-financial-downturn-asset-hyperinflation-recession-debt-federal-reserve-cd2638fe?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

New York

“Men and nations behave wisely,” the Israeli statesman Abba Eban observed, “when they have exhausted all other resources.” Imagine if our economic policy makers listened to Paul Singer instead. Mr. Singer, 78, is founder of Elliott Management and one of the world’s most successful hedge-fund proprietors. Before the financial crisis of 2008, he tried to alert investors and public officials about the dangers of subprime mortgages. In the 15 years since, he’s repeatedly warned that the landmark Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, and the expansive monetary policies along the way, were inviting disaster.

Will policy makers finally start listening? He isn’t betting on it. “I think that this is an extraordinarily dangerous and confusing period,” he says at the Manhattan office of his charitable foundation. (Elliott’s headquarters moved to West Palm Beach, Fla., in 2020.) Mr. Singer is dressed casually and appears relaxed, but his message won’t put investors at ease.

“Valuations are still very high,” he says. “There’s a significant chance of recession. We see the possibility of a lengthy period of low returns in financial assets, low returns in real estate, corporate profits, unemployment rates higher than exist now and lots of inflation in the next round.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/george-soros-son-alexander-visits-biden-white-house-disclosures

A son of left-wing billionaire and philanthropist George Soros has scored several recent visits to President Joe Biden’s White House as he showers Democrats with campaign donations and promotes his meetings with top lawmakers, records show.

Alexander Soros, chairman of the Open Society Foundations grantmaking network that his father founded in 1993 to influence left-leaning politics and culture matters, has increasingly posted images on social media of himself with Democratic lawmakers whose campaigns he has bankrolled. The 37-year-old, who the Washington Examiner reported has met with top Biden administration officials since at least 2021, spent more time at the White House in December 2022, according to federal visitor logs released Thursday.

“Alexander Soros is poised to lead his family’s multi billion-dollar political and philanthropic network,” Scott Walter, president of Capital Research Center, a conservative investigative think tank, told the Washington Examiner. “Like his father, he cozies up to White House and congressional leaders willing to do the family’s bidding on such issues as crime, immigration, election policy, and more, as the Soroses exploit every type of giving: money to parties, independent expenditure groups, and so-called ‘charities.'”

Walter added: “No wonder former staffers and grantees of their foundations, donor groups, and lobbying shops are found throughout the Biden administration, from the State Department to the Domestic Policy Council.”

https://asiatimes.com/2023/04/the-great-re-shoring-charade/

China’s position in global supply chains strengthens as US pretends to ‘friend-shore’ its imports

Moving factories from China to Mexico is one of the few hot topics in an otherwise listless market, US investment bankers say.

As American hostility to China rises, US corporations scramble to assure the public as well as inquisitive congressional committees that they are moving operations out of the Middle Kingdom to friendlier venues.

It’s all a pantomime for political consumption. US imports from Mexico, Vietnam, India and other “friend-shoring” venues depend on imports of Chinese components, according to an Asia Times study of international trade data. China’s exports to non-Japan Asia and Latin America are booming, and Chinese companies are investing billions of dollars in Mexico.

The charade permits American politicians to flaunt success in decoupling from China, and gives corporate leaders a chance to display their patriotism – while America’s indirect dependence on China’s industrial power increases.

“Friend-shoring” venues including India, Vietnam and Mexico show a lockstep relationship between imports from China and exports to the United States. Econometric analysis confirms that this relationship isn’t simply the result of a rising trend in both measures.

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3939238-as-recession-looms-who-will-biden-blame/

It’s the economy, stupid.

Those famous words from Democratic strategist James Carville must be haunting President Biden’s White House as the economy begins to slow — and just as the 2024 election moves into view.

Most recently, the job market appears to be faltering, with March gains pegged at 236,000, way down from February’s 311,000 and the 334,000 recorded on average over the past six months.

This is challenging for Biden, who hopes to run for reelection and has relied on solid employment gains to prove that his “economic plan is working.” It’s been a tough sell, seeing that inflation has caused real wages to decline for two years in a row; writing last fall, the Dallas Fed noted that the hit from inflation was “the most severe faced by employed workers over the past 25 years.”

Biden’s approval ratings on the economy, according to Real Clear Politics’ average of polls, is a disastrous 37 percent.

Of course, the downturn in growth – we are not yet in recession – has been engineered by and will be welcomed by the Federal Reserve, which slammed on the brakes a year ago as inflation soared to 40-year highs. Having dithered for more than a year as price increases gained steam, Chair Jerome Powell then jacked up rates at a historically aggressive pace and has also been reducing the size of the Fed balance sheet.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19570/trump-trials

Red lights have to be flashing for the current administration and its supporters: “danger ahead.”

Inflation continues threatening to turn into a crushing recession. Iran is reportedly days away from a nuclear-weapons breakout. A Chinese spy balloon just spent a week doing figure-eights over America’s most sensitive nuclear sights while transmitting information back to Beijing in real time. Communist Chinese President Xi Jinping is telling his people to prepare for war. And the House Oversight Committee keeps finding more bank evidence that the Biden family appears compromised by foreign payments.

What do the current administration and its supporters do, then? Revert to the tried-and-true playbook of the Trump era and launch the latest “Trump trial” to distract from the administration’s challenges. The pattern has been consistent – create a false narrative that is more favorable to themselves and more problematic for whoever is challenging them.

After seeing multiple high-level Democrat operatives from candidate Hillary Clinton herself approving a disinformation operation against then-candidate Trump, her campaign and the DNC reportedly financing the Steele dossier, DNI James Clapper reportedly leaking info on the Steel dossier to the media, Adam Schiff misleading his colleagues about information leading to the first Trump impeachment, and 51 former intelligence officials signing a bogus letter about the Hunter Biden laptop, there should be little surprise that New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg — whose campaign was indirectly supported by a million dollars from George Soros while Bragg “promised to put Trump behind bars” — decided to move forward with what ended up a totally fabricated, politically-motivated indictment of Trump. It did not even fulfill the constitutional requirement for Trump “to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation” – meaning: Bragg did not even name the supposed federal crime.

Those now in charge will seemingly do almost anything to make the narrative leading up to the election once again about allegations against Trump instead of the geopolitical and economic shortcomings of Biden’s policies. If a presidential candidate, a Director of National Intelligence, and a Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee will engage in hyper-partisan political activities under the guise of legitimate government activities, why should we be surprised that a local prosecutor might do the same thing?

The bottom line is that every Republican potential candidate will have to address the “Trump issue,” probably multiple times during the upcoming weeks and months, rather than discussing their solutions and proposals to address the economic and national security concerns gripping Americans today. For the current administration, that is “mission accomplished.”

What’s a politician to do? Going into a presidential election year, the incumbent president looks to be facing a difficult reelection campaign. Persistently high inflation numbers remain a problem. Energy prices are still up. America’s southern border is being overrun with illegal border-crossers and fentanyl. Major bank failures have raised the specter of a banking crisis. There are multiple House of Representatives investigations covering Biden family finances, the weaponization of government agencies, China, and the origins of COVID. For the current administration and its supporters, the answer is as easy as it is familiar: change the subject to Donald Trump. It has been an oppositional go-to foil since Trump dared step onto the political stage in 2016.